Manitoba sees roughly 200,000 advanced poll voters

Manitobans made their voices heard in the lead up to Tuesday’s election, as Elections Manitoba saw a striking 43 per cent increase in the number of voters who took advantage of casting ballots in advance.

“There is a Canada wide trend, where more people are voting in advance. We’ve been seeing the number of advance voters increasing election after election,” said Michael Ambrose, director of communications at Elections Manitoba.

“This was a pretty huge jump, but it is still to early to say whether that will correlate with a large increase on election day as well.”

But in the eyes of Malcolm Bird, associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Winnipeg, the record numbers at advanced polls are more indicative of avid voters beating the rush. He’s predicting overall numbers to remain similar to the last election in 2019, that saw just 55 per cent of eligible Manitobans cast a vote.

“Probably going to be a quieter election and I am expecting lower turnout numbers from previous years,” said Bird. “I think most people that are going to advance polls are dedicated voter folks so this does not indicate higher turnout.”

If you were not one of the 200,000 Manitobans to cast your vote at advance polling, there still is time, as polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.