More than 50 pr cent more Manitobans voted in advance polls for the Sept. 20 federal election than did so in 2019, Elections Canada reports.
184,611 Manitobans voted in advance polls this month, compared to 117,708 in 2019, an increase of nearly 67,000 votes or 57 per cent.
All 14 of Manitoba’s federal electoral divisions reported an increase in the number of advance ballots cast.
The increase ranged from just over a third more votes in some districts to more than double the number of advance ballots in the Portage-Lisgar riding.
In Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, 4,624 voters marked their ballots in advance, an increase of about 34 per cent from the 3,449 who did so in 2019. There are just over 48,000 voters in the district, based on preliminary voters lists, meaning about 9.5 per cent of eligible voters have already filled out their ballots. It is also nearly one-fifth as many votes as were cast overall in the 2019 federal election, when less than 46 per cent of eligible voters in the riding marked ballots.
in 2015, when voter turnout in Churchill-Keewtinook Aski was 58 per cent, there were 4,551 advance votes cast by district residents.
Churchill-Keewatinook Aski’s advance voting increase over 2019 was the lowest in percentage terms of any of Manitoba’s 14 electoral districts.
Turnout on voting day itself will show whether the advance voting increase is indicative of more voters in general or just a case of people who would have voted on election day doing it earlier for convenience or as a precaution due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
