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Voters start casting ballots as election day arrives
After an exhaustive 78-day campaign that saw the main federal party leaders try to woo voters with sharply contrasting visions for the country's future, election day has finally arrived and polling places have opened their doors.
Polling stations across the country are now open, and some of the 26.4 million eligible electors in Canada have begun arriving to cast their ballots in an election that is expected to have a high turnout.
Some 3.6 million Canadians have already cast ballots during the four-day advance polling period on the Thanksgiving long weekend — an increase of 71 per cent over the 2011 election, when only three days of advance polls were held.
Whether that increased voter turnout carries into the main event is a question that will be answered today. Just 61.4 per cent of eligible electors cast a ballot in 2011, up marginally from the 58.8 per cent in 2008 — the lowest ever in a federal election.
That's why all parties will be working hard today to get their identified voters to the polls. When the public is apathetic, party ground games count for more.
Election observers will be watching closely as another new wrinkle unfolds this evening. For the first time ever, it is legal to transmit election results across time zones into areas of the country where polls have not yet closed — ending an old blackout policy that was becoming all but impossible to enforce in the era of social media.
The 20,000 polling places in each of the six time zones are open for 12 hours throughout the day, with those in the Pacific region closing their doors at 7:00 p.m. PT.
With the campaign that began in the sweltering August heat and ended under with snow and frost in some places, all that remains for exhausted party workers is to get out the vote in what appears to be an epic battle fought over gut-level values as much as election platforms.
When Parliament was dissolved for the election on Aug. 2, the Conservatives held 159 seats in the 308-seat House of Commons, the NDP had 95 and the Liberals 36, with another 18 seats either vacant, held by Independents or shared between the Green party (two seats) and the Bloc Québécois and a splinter group.
Due to population growth, 30 new seats have been added this election, including 15 in Ontario, six each for Alberta and British Columbia and three more for Quebec.
But the new ridings mean most old riding boundaries also had to be redrawn, literally reconfiguring the electoral map and making seat projections all the more difficult. Combine that with some spectacular polling embarrassments in recent provincial elections and today's outcome remains very much up in the air.
The leaders of the three main federal parties — the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP — will have a stressful day waiting for official results to begin being reported after a marathon campaign that was, until recently, billed as a tight three-way race.
More recent polls, however, suggested that the NDP lost steam in the final weeks of the campaign and the 42nd federal election race has narrowed to a battle mainly between the Tories and Liberals.
In many ridings across the country, the party polling in first maintains only a razor-thin margin of victory, meaning every vote will count when the final tally is revealed late tonight or in the early hours tomorrow morning.
It was a message that the parties pushed hard to supporters at rallies over the weekend, particularly the Tories, who risk losing the majority government they won in 2011. Candidate Peter van Loan, appearing at the Conservatives final campaign event in Abbotsford, B.C., said that "some ridings will be decided by not who votes, but who decides not to vote."
@Emperor_ReinScarf
@Poppa_Dock
@Jamal
Voters start casting ballots as election day arrives
After an exhaustive 78-day campaign that saw the main federal party leaders try to woo voters with sharply contrasting visions for the country's future, election day has finally arrived and polling places have opened their doors.
Polling stations across the country are now open, and some of the 26.4 million eligible electors in Canada have begun arriving to cast their ballots in an election that is expected to have a high turnout.
Some 3.6 million Canadians have already cast ballots during the four-day advance polling period on the Thanksgiving long weekend — an increase of 71 per cent over the 2011 election, when only three days of advance polls were held.
Whether that increased voter turnout carries into the main event is a question that will be answered today. Just 61.4 per cent of eligible electors cast a ballot in 2011, up marginally from the 58.8 per cent in 2008 — the lowest ever in a federal election.
That's why all parties will be working hard today to get their identified voters to the polls. When the public is apathetic, party ground games count for more.
Election observers will be watching closely as another new wrinkle unfolds this evening. For the first time ever, it is legal to transmit election results across time zones into areas of the country where polls have not yet closed — ending an old blackout policy that was becoming all but impossible to enforce in the era of social media.
The 20,000 polling places in each of the six time zones are open for 12 hours throughout the day, with those in the Pacific region closing their doors at 7:00 p.m. PT.
With the campaign that began in the sweltering August heat and ended under with snow and frost in some places, all that remains for exhausted party workers is to get out the vote in what appears to be an epic battle fought over gut-level values as much as election platforms.
When Parliament was dissolved for the election on Aug. 2, the Conservatives held 159 seats in the 308-seat House of Commons, the NDP had 95 and the Liberals 36, with another 18 seats either vacant, held by Independents or shared between the Green party (two seats) and the Bloc Québécois and a splinter group.
Due to population growth, 30 new seats have been added this election, including 15 in Ontario, six each for Alberta and British Columbia and three more for Quebec.
But the new ridings mean most old riding boundaries also had to be redrawn, literally reconfiguring the electoral map and making seat projections all the more difficult. Combine that with some spectacular polling embarrassments in recent provincial elections and today's outcome remains very much up in the air.
The leaders of the three main federal parties — the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP — will have a stressful day waiting for official results to begin being reported after a marathon campaign that was, until recently, billed as a tight three-way race.
More recent polls, however, suggested that the NDP lost steam in the final weeks of the campaign and the 42nd federal election race has narrowed to a battle mainly between the Tories and Liberals.
In many ridings across the country, the party polling in first maintains only a razor-thin margin of victory, meaning every vote will count when the final tally is revealed late tonight or in the early hours tomorrow morning.
It was a message that the parties pushed hard to supporters at rallies over the weekend, particularly the Tories, who risk losing the majority government they won in 2011. Candidate Peter van Loan, appearing at the Conservatives final campaign event in Abbotsford, B.C., said that "some ridings will be decided by not who votes, but who decides not to vote."
