Elections BC is encouraging voters to get ready for the October 19th provincial election.
Andrew Watson, Senior Director of Communications, said they suggest people make sure that their voter registration is up to date.
“One of the things we’re encouraging voters to do is to make sure their voter registration is up to date. They can do that by calling Elections BC at 1-800-661-8683 and they can also go online to elections.bc.ca/register and go through the process online. It only takes a few minutes and it helps us make sure we have their correct information.”
Watson adds having the correct voter information will ensure that people get a vote card that tells you where to vote on election day.
Watson notes that there are half a dozen new ridings in this election and there have also been some boundary changes.
“That includes name changes for some ridings. For example the Cariboo North riding has changed its name to Prince George-North Cariboo. We’ll be sending a voter registration notice across the province starting this week and it will actually include information about the new riding names for this election. Voters can also go online to our website at mydistrict.elections.bc.ca. That is a new application we’ve launched for this election. Voters can enter their address there and they’ll see a map of all the new ridings and the new names, so they can get that information to see if there riding has changed.”
Watson stated the goal is to encourage as many people as they can to vote.
“The last provincial election in BC took place in 2020 and voter turnout was around 54 percent of registered voters. That works out to about 1.8 million votes. In 2017, the turnout was 61 percent of registered voters, although around the same number of votes were cast. There were just more registered voters than in 2020, so the percentage of registered voters participating was lower.”
Watson says their focus at Elections BC is to make sure that the voting process is as easy as possible for voters and making sure that voters have all of the information they need to vote in the provincial election.
“We’ll be sending a voters guide across the province after the election is called, I mentioned the where to vote cards and the voter registration notices we’ll be sending out. We’ll also be doing public awareness ads to make sure that voters have all the information they need to participate in the election if they chose to do so.”
Besides election day, advance voting is scheduled for October 10th to 13, and October 15th and 16th.
The provincial election is expected to be called on Saturday, September 21st.
– with files from George Henderson, My Cariboo Now
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