Update: Voter Turn-Out Lower Locally

Update: 12 pm:

Elections BC says voter turnout for Tuesday’s provincial election was up from the last one in 2013.

The agency says close to two-million people cast ballots.

That works out to 60 per cent, up from 57 per cent four years ago.

All of the extra voting opportunities for the BC election didn’t seem to generate a lot of extra voters.

That was the case in Vernon Monashee where 26,005 people voted, a turnout of about 55%, down from the 27,056 voters — or 57% — in 2013.

Vernon Monashee elections officer Jan Mori says people liked the extra advance voting.

“In our case, probably an extra two thousand people took advantage of the early voting, and close to 600 voted at our (electoral) office, so the advance opportunities are certainly a great idea,” Mori tells Kiss FM

Mori says people could also mail-in their ballot , or vote by telephone.

She says it wasn’t super busy on general voting day Tuesday.

“Our voting officials more or less said it was steady> They didn’t have huge long lineups at all. It was just people going in and voting.”