Thousands more people chose to vote in advance polls in Langley-area ridings than did in the 2019 election, according to Elections Canada data released this week.
In Cloverdale-Langley City, 20,845 people cast ballots at the four days of advance polls that began on Friday, Sept. 10 and concluded on Monday, Sept. 13.
That’s up from the 17,519 voters who went to advance polls in the same riding two years ago.
In Langley-Aldergrove, the jump was even larger.
There were 21,775 ballots cast at advance polls in that riding, up from 15,631 during the last election.
Elections Canada noted that the numbers are preliminary, as a few polls may not have reported by the time the data was compiled. The numbers for this year could go up.
Across B.C., advance voting was up by approximately 13 per cent compared to 2019.
READ MORE: Advance voting up 13% in B.C. since 2019 – Elections Canada
Preliminary numbers show that 804,116 British Columbians cast their ballot early, up from 710,107 in 2019 – a 13.3 per cent increase.
Nationwide, 5.8 million Canadians cast their ballot, an 18.5 per cent increase from the 2019 election.
Tuesday was the deadline to apply to vote by mail in the election, a different procedure from voting at an advance poll.
The number of mail-in ballots is expected to increase substantially this year due to people being cautious about going out to in-person polls during the pandemic.
READ MORE: Final outcome of a pandemic election could take a few days
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