Nearly 20% of eligible voters vote early in Stikine riding for 2020 provincial election

Nearly 20% of eligible voters took advantage of the advanced voting days for the BC Provincial Election in the Stikine riding.

The early polls opened on Oct 15 and closed Wednesday (Oct 21).

In Stikine, 2,708 votes were tallied out of 14, 250 eligible voters (19%).

Elections BC spokesperson Andrew Watson said election officials normally see the advanced voting go into a U-shape for voting numbers.

“The first day is a big day then the last day turns out to be a big day with the number of voters participating,” he said.

In the Nechako Lakes riding, only 9% of eligible voters took advantage of the early polls.

The riding had 1,539 ballots cast out of the 17,418 eligible voters.

According to Watson, nearly 19.5% of British Columbians voted in the early polls with over 681 thousand people.

Watson also said the numbers of advanced voters is similar to the 2017 Provincial election.

“I would describe it as relatively the same. The advanced voting period is a bit different this time, we had a seven-day advanced voting period this election as we added an additional day to give voters more opportunity to vote but also give more time with our pandemic response.” he said.

Voting numbers by day:

Stikine:
Oct 15 – 411

Oct 16- 577

Oct 17- 507

Oct 18- 386

Oct 19- 328

Oct 20- 275

Oct 21- 421

Nechako Lakes:
Oct 15- 424

Oct 16- 297

Oct 17- 236

Oct 18- 89

Oct 19- 124

Oct 20- 211

Oct 21- 158

General Election Day is Saturday (Oct 24) from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. For a full list of polling stations go to the Elections BC website.