Voter turnout estimated at 52 per cent; 525,000 mail-in votes

Elections BC has a busy next few weeks ahead.

The provincial agency still has to verify and then count the more than 500,000 mail-in ballots that have been received for the B.C. election held on Oct. 24.

Official results of the 87 ridings are not expected until Nov. 16.

That includes Vernon-Monashee where just 180 votes separates Eric Foster of the Liberals and Harwinder Sandhu of the NDP for the MLA’s job, a race that will be decided by mail-in votes with over 8,700 packages issued with no word yet on how many were returned.

At this point, Elections BC estimates that at least 52.4 per cent of registered voters voted in the 2020 election.

That’s a preliminary estimate of voter turnout based on:

• the number of voters who voted during advance voting, in their electoral district
• the number of voters who voted on Election Day, at their assigned voting place
• an estimate of the number of certification envelopes containing absentee ballots, to be considered at final count
• an estimate of the number of completed vote-by-mail packages containing mail-in ballots, to be considered at final count

A total of 670,324 voters voted in their electoral district during the advance voting period, and 546,877 voters voted on election day at their assigned voting place.

An estimated 85,000 certification envelopes containing absentee ballots will be considered for final count. These ballots were cast at absentee voting opportunities during advance voting, on Election Day, and throughout the campaign period (at voting opportunities such as voting at a district electoral office or a special voting opportunity).

As of October 24, Elections BC had received approximately 525,000 mail-in ballots, though this figure does not include mail-in ballots returned by voters in person to voting places or district electoral offices before the deadline of 8 p.m. Pacific time on October 24.

As of September 26, there were 3,485,858 registered voters in B.C.

In the 2017 Provincial General Election, 61.18 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot, and there were 1,986,374 valid votes. The number of valid votes in 2020 could be comparable, at around 1.8 million.

Elections BC will publish an updated figure for voter turnout once more accurate figures are available.