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21 per cent of ballots returned in electoral referendum

Percentage of screened ballots in Cariboo likely higher than average due to mailout schedule
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The count of mail-in votes on B.C.’s electoral referendum has gone up over the weekend with approximately 682,300 packages now received by Elections B.C., representing about 21 per cent of eligible voters.

The percentage of votes screened (verified and transferred for counting) sits at about half of that at 10.6 per cent.

In the Cariboo-Chilcotin and Cariboo North, the percentages screened are higher (16.3 and 14 per cent respectively) but according to an Elections BC spokesperson, “it’s likely that the percentage screened is higher in some areas because those areas received their voting packages first in our initial mail-out.”

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In much of the Cariboo-Chilcotin and Cariboo North the packages were mailed out on Oct. 24 and 25 as opposed to other areas in the province, such as Abbotsford, where packages were mailed out on Nov. 2

“The schedule is setup this way for a few reasons. Electoral districts with the longest postal delivery standards received their packages first, recognizing that it would take longer for completed packages to be returned from these locations. The initial mail-out also took place over two weeks for logistical considerations around large-volume mailing, and to avoid overwhelming our contact centre (which could have happened if all of the deliveries took place over a shorter period of time).”


newsroom@100milefreepress.net

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