After five days of advance polls closed on Saturday, 696,000 people had cast their ballots for the 2019 Alberta Election.
That total is significantly higher than seen before, as the 2015 election racked up only 235,000 advance votes, while blowing the 2008 election’s total of 64,000 out of the water.
There were 2,076 “vote anywhere” ballots cast for the Highwood electoral division.
“We’re very pleased and excited with the turnout at the advance polls, it’s almost triple what we had in 2015,” said Drew Westwater, deputy chief electoral officer for Alberta. “Which is a good indicator in what the interest is in the election process selection.”
The increase in votes can be attributed to a few factors. A main factor for many was the “vote anywhere” system put in place, which allowed
voters to cast their ballots at any polling station during the advance poll, said Westwater.
This, in combination with this election having 268 advance polling stations compared to only 161 in 2015, allowed for more people to access the service.
Some of the key advance polling stations were at university and college campuses, airports, malls, and work camps, which allowed for significantly higher turnout.
“We were in locations we hadn’t traditionally been before, because we wanted to go to places people are located on a regular basis that we don’t traditionally have voting locations in,” said Westwater. “So we went to shopping malls, we went to both Calgary and Edmonton airports, we were in community centres, hockey arenas, various locations throughout the province where we felt in each community to best reach out to the electors where they were, rather than making them come to us.
“Voter turnout is very important to the electoral process, and accessibility to the ballot box and ballots for those who are entitled to it is very important.”
Ballots cast by voters in their riding were counted among the ballots submitted on election day and were reflected in the numbers seen Tuesday night.
Votes cast outside a voter’s riding – such as at the airport or work camps – will be sorted by Elections Alberta in Edmonton and then counted in the correct electoral divisions.
Of the 696,000 advance votes, 223,000 were cast outside of their riding.
“[The vote anywhere] opportunity was well taken advantage of and we look forward to the excitement continuing on election day and lots of electors coming out to vote and choosing their Alberta,” said Westwater.
The additional sorting and counting will start Wednesday at noon and is expected be completed by Saturday, though the large amount of ballots could delay the process.
While the advance poll turnout was impressive, there remained another 2 million registered voters in Alberta waiting for election day.
The “vote anywhere” option was only available during the advance polls.
