Advance voting: Over one in 10 registered voters have already cast their ballots in B.C.

Halfway through six days of advance voting for Saturday’s provincial election, nearly 12 per cent of all registered voters in B.C. have already cast their ballot.

Through Sunday, 440,318 ballots have been cast at polling stations around B.C. There are 3,738,182 registered voters in the province. More than 200,000 of those ballots were cast on Saturday alone.

Broken down by municipality, the numbers are similar: 51,631 votes have been cast in Vancouver through Sunday, just under 11 per cent of the 476,613 registered voters. In Surrey, 45,918 ballots were cast out of 373,565 voters, or more than 12 per cent.

Burnaby, B.C.’s third most populous city, has had 21,053 advance voters out of 183,864 who are registered, or about 11.5 per cent. The next most-populous city, Richmond, had 15,553 ballots cast out of 149,825 voters, or about 10.5 per cent.

Kelowna, the most-populous city in B.C.’s Interior, has had 18,455 ballots cast out of 143,282 voters, or nearly 13 per cent.

Advance voting continues through Wednesday at polling stations around the province. Final voting day is Saturday, Oct. 24. Polls for both advance voting and on Saturday are open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The numbers for advance voting so far are similar to the last provincial election. At the midway point in 2024 advance polling, 477,095 ballots had been cast, almost 10 per cent higher than this year’s tally of 440,318.

But two years ago, advance voting ramped up in the final days, so something similar could happen again this week. In 2024, about 223,000 voters went to the polls on the Wednesday before election day, a record at the time.

In all, just over a million voters went to advance polls in 2024, about 28 per cent of all who were registered to vote.

By comparison, Saturday saw just over 200,000 voters cast a ballot, by far the busiest day in the first three days of advance voting in the 2026 election.

For more information about advance voting and to find a location, go to elections.bc.ca.

jruttle@postmedia.com

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