Its neck and neck - in terms of advance voting enthusiasm among Westsiders and residents of one sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ riding.Ìý
A total of 10,786 people have already voted in the riding of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½-Lake Country-Coldstream, Elections BC reported Wednesday. That was just ahead of the 10,773 people who've voted in the riding of West sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½-Peachland.Ìý
That means 24 per cent voters in those two ridings have already made their mark heading into Saturdaysa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ provincial election.Ìý
In the new riding of sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Centre, 10,196 people cast ballots through the first five days of advance voting, for a turnout of about 22 per cent. In sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Mission, the advance vote count has been 9,993, also 23 per cent.Ìý
In the South Okanagan, 12,084 people have voted, equal to almost 27 per cent of all eligible voters.Ìý
Highest advance vote turnout province-wide has been in the new riding of Ladysmith-Oceanside, at 13,422 ballots cast, equal to 28 per cent of all eligible voters.Ìý
Fewest advance voters have been cast in Nechako Lakes in North Central B.C based around Burns Lake, Vanderhoof, and Houston. Only 3,944 people have cast advance votes, however there are only 17,693 eligible voters in the riding so the turnout is actually 22 per cent.Ìý
Across sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, 778,424 people have cast ballots, equal to 22 per cent of eligible voters.Ìý
The last day of advance voting was on Wednesday. Polls are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and, with electronic vote counting machines being used for the first time in a sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ election, results are expected to be complete as early as 8:30 p.m.Ìý
Although the machines produce almost instantaneous results, the votes for each candidate must be phoned into Elections BC by staff at each of the hundreds of polling stations because the devices are not connected to the Internet. The results will then be posted to the Elections BC website.Ìý
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