Over 28 per cent of the 138-thousand eligible voters in the five Kootenay area riding’s have cast an early ballot ahead of Saturday’s election.
As for what this could mean for foot traffic on the final day to vote, UNBC Senior Political Science Instructor Jason Morris says it could be a bad pre-cursor.
“Sometimes advance voting can be like a store that holds its grand opening and it sees a whole bunch of customers but then later on, business is slow.”
“However, if something happens in the campaign and the candidate or party conducts itself really poorly you can’t change your mind in the final days of the campaign and you can’t change your vote.”
Morris added the surge in advance polling signifies lots of friction between the BC NDP and the Conservatives.
“If we have more people coming out to advanced polls one hypothesis is that there is a divisive election campaign and people are feeling really motivated to get out there and vote in a polarizing environment.”
In addition, the slate of Independent candidates, who mostly consist of previously elected BC United MLA’s are likely to play a major role looking to duplicate what was done in 2009 when Independent Delta-South candidate Vicki Huntington got elected.
“The difference this time is the independent candidates are much more known entities and they could be considered spoilers on the so-called right of the political spectrum with the BC Conservatives and former BC United candidates taking votes from each other.”
The Independent candidate pool consists of Kootenay Rockies MLA Tom Shypitka, Kootenay-Central candidate Corinne Mori, Boundary-Similkameen candidate Sean Taylor along with a slew of others scattered across the province.
The last day of advance voting is today, Thursday, October 16.
The advance voting numbers are up to and including October 13th.
A full list of advanced voting numbers can be found here.
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