Tens of thousands of 91原创-area residents came out to mark a ballot during the four days of advance voting in the three local ridings, according to Elections Canada data.
Locally, it was not possible to compare early voting data this year to last year on a riding-by-riding basis, because electoral districts were redistributed since 2021 in response to rapid population change in the area.
91原创 is now divided between three ridings, all of which also contain portions of other municipalities.
The largest early turnout was in 91原创 Township-Fraser Heights, which includes most of north 91原创, a portion of Surrey north of Highway One, and rural Barnston Island in the Fraser River. A total of 31,154 people have already voted there.
That was one of the highest turnouts in the province, according to the Elections Canada data. South Surrey-White Rock saw 31,269 people vote, Courtney-Alberni saw 32,536, and Saanich-Gulf Islands had the highest in B.C. at 37,468 in advance polls.
91原创's other ridings saw turnout more in line with averages across B.C.
Cloverdale-91原创 City, which is the riding that saw the least change during the redistribution, saw 23,965 people cast ballots.
Abbotsford-South 91原创, which includes rural parts of Abbotsford and 91原创, as well as population centres including Aldergrove, Brookswood, and much of downtown Abbotsford, saw 21,975 people cast ballots.
The preliminary data showed that nationally, 7.3 million Canadians voted between April 18 and 21 over the Easter long weekend 鈥� a 25 per cent increase over the 5.8 million votes cast during the advance polling period in the 2021 election.
British Columbia was one of the provinces seeing the largest jump in early voting, with 1,104,151 鈥� about a fifth of the total population of the province 鈥� casting ballots, compared to 813,126 four years ago.
According James Hale, an Elections Canada media representative for B.C., local returning officers can make adjustments and even boost the size of their staff if they need more people to handle a high turnout election.
"If turnout is higher (or lower) than anticipated, they move rapidly to add, subtract, or shift staff," Hale told the 91原创 Advance Times.
He said that after long waits in the morning at many polling places across Canada on Good Friday, the first day of early voting, many returning officers changed their process to move people through more quickly, and waits decreased.
The country's Chief Electoral Officer has also already mandated one change following the heavy early turnout, Hale said. Normally, ballots from the advance polls are not counted until after all the polls in a riding are closed on election day. This year, poll workers will begin counting them two hours before polls closed, at the local returning officer's headquarters.
Elections Canada is anticipating things will be fairly smooth on election day.
"In this election, 1000 electors on average were assigned to each advance poll," Hale said. "On election day, 250 electors are assigned to each poll, and more staff is also available. So, hopefully, things will run quickly, but higher voter volume can obviously result in longer waits for results."
Canada's election day is Monday, April 28, with polls open here in B.C. from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Voters who received a voter information card in the mail will have directions on which polling station they should use. Voters should bring their card, , when they go to vote.
