Yahoo Finance Polling traffic busy for P.E.I.'s District 10 byelection
It was another busy day Monday at the advance poll for the byelection in District 10, Charlottetown-Winsloe.
A further 13 per cent of registered voters cast ballots, said Elections P.E.I., bringing the total after two days of advance polls to more than 28 per cent. Almost six per cent have voted by mail-in ballot.
There is one more advance polling day on Friday, with the poll open from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m.
Chief Electoral Officer Tim Garrity told Island Morning Tuesday that the poll has been busy but there are no serious spikes in traffic.
"We're not seeing any real delays or lineups," Garrity told Island Morning host Mitch Cormier.
"A couple of times, on the first day, on Saturday, of course we're just opening the poll for the first time, people are excited to get out to vote, so there was a little bit of a wait. By that I mean maybe just a couple of minutes of people in line."
The byelection became necessary when Robert Mitchell, who represented the Liberal Party, resigned in early September.
Four candidates are running in the byelection. Alphabetically, they are:
Zack Bell, Progressive Conservative Party.
Zac Murphy, Liberal Party.
Lynne Thiele, New Democratic Party.
Chris van Ouwerkerk, Green Party.
A win for the PCs would give the party 14 seats, and a majority in the legislature.
Emergency voting
As part of public health protocols during the pandemic, people are being asked to not enter the polling station if they have symptoms of COVID-19, and Elections P.E.I. is working on a plan to assist voters who wake up feeling sick on election day.
The voter would make a last-minute application for a mail-in ballot and an Elections P.E.I. employee would deliver it to their home.
"Drop it off, say, on their doorstep, back away a significant distance, allow them to complete the process and then they would just leave it back on the step," said Garrity.
"We would go back in and pick that up — of course, properly sanitizing everything as we went."
Garrity said he expects this would be a rare event, and his office should be able to handle any requests.
Election day is Monday, Nov. 2.
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