The advance polls were extra busy in Delta ahead of federal election day on Monday.
According to Elections Canada, 18,148 eligible Delta voters cast a ballot at the advanced polls, which ran Friday, Sept. 10 to Monday, Sept. 13.
That’s way up from the 15,063 advance ballots cast in the 2019 federal election.
Elections Canada notes an estimated 5.78 million Canadians cast an advance ballot, an increase of 18.5 per cent compared to the advance ballots cast in last election, and a 57 per cent increase from the 2015 election.
The preliminary numbers also show that 804,116 British Columbians cast an advance ballot, a 13.3 per cent increase from the 2019 election.
This year’s federal election candidates in the Delta riding are Liberal incumbent Carla Qualtrough, the Greens Jeremy Smith, New Democrat Monika Dean, People’s Party of Canada’s Paul Tarasenko, Conservative Garry Shearer and independent Hong Yan Pan, also known as Melody Pan.
In the October 2019 election, Qualtrough, retained her seat by a 4,300-vote margin over the Conservatives’ Tanya Corbet.
The NDP finished a distant third, followed by the Greens, the People’s Party and two independents.
Qualtrough won 41.2 per cent of the vote that year.
Qualtrough was first elected in 2015 in a newly reconfigured riding which combined South Delta with North Delta.
She finished around 9,000 votes ahead of then Conservative incumbent Kerry-Lynne Findlay in that race, garnering 49.3 per cent of the popular vote.
Delta saw a 69.32 per cent voter turnout in 2019 with 53,288 of 76,871 registered electors casting a ballot – the ninth highest riding in the province, according to Elections Canada.
