Advanced polling begins Friday

Historically, advanced voting has been popular among the public, largely due to its accessibility.

“We know that when more people vote before the election day with advanced polls, we get a higher overall voter turnout. In the 2019 election, Canada saw a 30% increase in advanced voting,” said Jason Morris, Senior Instructor, UNBC Department of Political Science

However this election will be different. If voters head to the polls, they’ll be seeing extra precautions in place due to COVID-19.

Morris says advanced polls are crucial because it provides flexibility to voters.

“With mail-in ballots and with advanced voter opportunities, it’s just easier for people to vote who have complicated work, life, and social schedules. It makes sense to perhaps the next stage to start looking at is at online voting through mobile phones to increase the accessibility options,” said Morris

This year, Elections Canada has sent out more than 700,000 special ballot voting kits–which includes mail-in votes. Most of those kits are people within their own riding.

“That number is right now over 600,000. That’s for people who are in their home riding. They’re basically going to be voting from home, but they don’t want to go out to the polls,” said Marantz.

Morris says advanced polls are usually a deciding factor in where the election will go.

“We do know that for advanced voters, they tend to be older than the general population and they tend to be more politically engaged. So in that respect, the train has kinda left the station for where the election is headed and it’s really only going be up to those that are undecided to try and change things,” said Morris.

But it’s uncertain how it will look like this year. Marantz says that this election, voters may be sent to a polling place that’s unfamiliar to them.

“A lot of this is because of the pandemic that some places were not available to us but also we had a different set of criteria that we had to look at. The need for social distancing was very very important, so you may be driving a little bit farther to your poll,” said Marantz.

Polls will be opened from 9AM to 9PM, Friday September 9th, 2021 to Monday September 13th, 2021

Locations can be found on the back of your voting information card. If you want to vote by mail, the deadline to apply is Tuesday September 14th at 6PM.

For more information on how and where to vote, you can visit the Elections Canada website here.

by Oli Herrera

Advanced polling begins Friday

What's Trending