It was a record-breaking turnout at advance polling stations across Canada over the Easter long weekend.
During four days of advance voting between April 18-21, an estimated 7.3-million Canadians exercised their democratic right to have a say in the 2025 federal election.
It marked a 25% increase from the 5.8-million voters that cast their ballot in advance during the previous federal election in 2021.
People showed up in droves to vote all across Canada last weekend and the Okanagan was no exception, as polling stations were busy in all four ridings in the region.
The battleground of Kelowna saw 25,406 people vote in advance and 29,483 citizens did the same in Okanagan Lake West–South Kelowna.
To the north, there were 27,359 voters who cast an early ballot in Vernon–Lake Country–Monashee, while 29,743 people voted in the region’s southernmost riding of Similkameen–South Okanagan–West Kootenay.
That's a total of 111,991 voters across the four ridings.
Data on eligible voters and previous election history in the region suggests that around half of the votes that will be cast in Okanagan ridings during this election were done in advance.
According to Elections Canada, the busiest of the four days of advance voting were Friday and Monday with more than two-million ballots cast on both days.
In British Columbia, just over 1.1-million people utilized advance voting, nearly 300,000 more than the total in 2021.
