Kootenay East voters out in droves already

Almost a third of voters in Kootenay East have either already voted or plan to vote by mail according to Elections BC data.

With only two days to go until the Oct. 24 election, candidates running in Kootenay East have a shrinking pool of voters to sway considering 7,146 voters have already voted and 3,236 requested mail-in ballots out of a total of 32,135 registered voters in the riding.

That means that turnout already stands at roughly 32 percent if all mail-in ballots are returned.

By comparison, in the 2017 election turnout was 55.71 percent - with only 17,188 voters in the riding exercising their right to vote.

Province-wide, over half a million ballots have already been cast (out of 3.5 million), while over 700,000 mail-in ballots were requested, with urban voters accounting for the lions share.

Candidates vying to represent Kootenay East in the next parliament have been criss-crossing the riding, with previous MLA Tom Shypitka in the South Country on Wednesday, and Wayne Stetski making appearances in the Elk Valley over the weekend.

All three candidates faced-off in three rapid-fire zoom forums last week, while each candidate has been doing the rounds online as a way to side-step COVID regulations that effectively prohitibited the more traditional campaigning methods.

READ MORE: At a glance: Kootenay East candidates go head-to-head in Elk Valley forum