Advanced Voting: Do People Care?

Each week I must blog about something related to journalism. This week I chose the topic advanced voting. Before this election, I never really gave this topic much thought. If I did think about it, I thought it was a good thing because it provided convenience to voters, it promoted democracy etc.

For a journalism assignment, I had to write a 400 word article about advanced voting. I went to a couple of the advanced voting stations in the city and started talking to people about it. I also called Elections Manitoba and spoke with the Communications Officer there who was also able to provide a bit of insight on the issue.

I started thinking about advanced voting more and since I had to find something newsy to write about it,I started thinking, who pays for advanced voting. Then I started asking myself if it is the taxpayer, would they know they are paying for these costs? If they knew they were paying for these costs, would they be more inclined not to like these extra costs that advanced voting adds to the cost of running an election at the end of the day? These were the type of questions I asked people and It seems that most of the people are in favour of advanced voting but a few people were certainly not. Most of them did not know that the polls were open an extra day this year and some knew the tax payer covered the costs and some didn't. To investigate this further I thought of contacting Elections Manitoba. They were very friendly and helpful.

I spoke to Alison Mitchell, Manager of Communications and Public Information for Elections Manitoba. She was able to provide me with clarification about the changes to advance voting polls this election.

“Advance polls start from September 24 to Saturday October 1 and are open one extra day this election with 100 poll stations across the province,” she said.


When I asked people if they knew about the extra day of advanced voting this year, many said they were not aware of this. Abby Nicholls for example is 45 and self employed, she had no idea.

“I thought the advanced voting polls were good until I heard that I might have to pay for it. I don’t want to have to pay for other people’s convenience. That is just ridiculous. Plus, I wasn’t even made aware of the extra day this year and if I am covering the costs of that, I want to know about it,” she said.

When I continued to ask Mitchell about who pays for the election costs, she was able to explain it to me like this:

“The administration of the election is paid for through public funds. So, yes, taxpayers pay for advance voting, as well as election day voting and all associated costs. The way it was tracked in 2007, the costs of advance voting were not separated from election day voting, so we don’t have a number to provide for advance voting costs but the total cost of the election in 2007 was $7.54 million,” Mitchell said.

I also asked if she had any information about any statistics for advanced voting. This is what she was able to provide me.

“We have found through our post-election survey in 2007 that only half of the respondents who voted in advance said they would have been very likely to vote in the election if they could not vote in advance. Further, over 1 in 3 said that they would have been very unlikely to vote if they could not vote in advance. We are close to 44,000 voters voting in advanced polls this election and that surpasses the total number of advanced voters from 2007,” she said.

So, from these stats, I do feel that advanced voting is a good thing. However, I can see how people would get upset by it as Nicholls expressed above.

I spoke to some other people that day including Gale Fisher who is 70 years old and a retired secretary. Fisher advanced voted at Grant Park Shopping Centre while she was on her way to see a movie. She really likes the convenience of advanced voting but was not aware of the polls being open an extra day this year. She also wasn't aware that tax payers paid for this.

“I like the convenience of advanced voting. I can go anytime during the week. This location is great. I didn’t know about the advanced polls being open an extra day during this election,” Fisher said.

Guy Coughlin is another individual I spoke to and he is a retired insurance salesman who is 80 years old. He thought advanced voting is great.

“All I needed was my driver’s license. I like that if I was in Brandon I could have voted there too. I did not know it was for one extra day this year,” he said.