The first three days of advance voting have seen higher numbers than the corresponding days in 2010.
“We were just up a hair on the first day of polling … we were up 60 per cent for the second day compared to the same day last time, and then 10 per cent for Tuesday’s,” said Chris Belke, the returning officer for the municipal election and the city’s chief legislative officer.
He said overall that’s up about 20 per cent for the first three days. There were still two more advance voting sessions – on Thursday evening, and one Saturday morning – to go when Belke was interviewed.
“We’re close to 500 right now,” he said of the number of ballots cast. In 2010, more than 800 voted at the advance polls, and Belke expects to meet that and exceed it by a bit.
Whether or not the increase in advance polling numbers translates into a higher voter turnout on Oct. 21 in comparison to the election in 2010 remains to be seen.
“It would even be a stretch to assume because numbers are up for a bit for the advanced polling that they would be the same for the regular voting. For one thing, compared to the regular voting, this is a pretty small sample size,” Belke said.
