Low advance voting numbers in battleground ridings may spell trouble for Liberals, New Democrats
They voted in droves in St. Albert and Sherwood Park. The vote counts were healthy in Parkland County and Leduc.
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But in Edmonton, turnout was, well, kind of meh at advance polling stations. None of the nine Edmonton ridings finished in the top 100 when it came to advance-voter turnout, despite Elections Canada reporting a new record of nearly 7.3 million early ballot-casters nationally. Compare that to St. Albert-Sturgeon River, which had 30,250 advance voters, tops in the region and 14th-best in Canada. Shewood Park-Fort Saskatchewan had 30,205 early voters, 15th best in Canada.
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And, in ridings that are predicted to be hot spots on Monday night, the advance voting buzz was decidedly cool. In Edmonton Southeast, where Mayor Amarjeet Sohi is carrying the Liberal flag against Conservative Jagsharan Singh Mahal, only 15,459 people voted early, the lowest number in the region. That was only slightly topped by 15,787 early voters in Griesbach, where NDP Blake Desjarlais is expected to be in a neck-and-neck rematch with Tory Kerry Diotte.
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And, Edmonton Centre, with Liberal Eleanor Olszewski against Tory Sayid Ahmed and the NDP's Trisha Estabrooks, was third worst, with 17,351 advance voters.
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On paper, there's a correlation between low early voter turnout and what are expected to be the tightest election-night races in the region. But, is it more than a coincidence?
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Chaldeans Mensah, associate professor of political science at MacEwan University, said the low turnout numbers are warning shots for Sohi's campaign in the southeast and the NDP in Edmonton Centre and Griesbach.
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'It's a call to arms for the NDP candidates if they want to survive,' said Mensah of Estabrooks and Desjarlais. 'They are not getting any help from the national campaign.'
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He said the NDP traditionally does well at mobilizing its supporters. So, in an election where much of the country has shown more engagement in the vote, it's worrying for the New Democrats in ridings where the high-turnout trend is bucked, at least so far.
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