In the 45th federal election, which took place this Monday, Canada set a new record regarding total voter turnout.
According to Elections Canada’s preliminary numbers, 19,583,016 Canadians cast a ballot this election.
Of those voters, over 11 million voted at their polling station on election day, around 7.3 million voted at advanced polls and just over 1.2 million voted by special ballot (inmates, armed forces members, those outside the country, etc.)
Prior to this year, the record number of voters casting a ballot was 18,350,359 in the 2019 federal election.
Despite this year’s turnout setting a new record, with just over 19.5 million voters, the percentage of eligible Canadians who cast a ballot equates to roughly 68.65%.
This percentage of eligible voters is not a record when looking back on Canada’s past elections.
The highest percentage of eligible voter turnout actually took place back in the 1963 federal election, with 79.2%.
This high turnout took place when former prime minister Lester B. Pearson won the election for the Liberals, defeating the Progressive Conservatives who had won the prior election.
The lowest percentage of eligible voters took place in 1898, while Sir Wilfred Laurier was prime minister. This however was not a low turnout for a federal election, but rather the country-wide referendum on the prohibition of alcohol in which only 44.2% of eligible Canadians voted.
It should be noted that at this time in Canadian history, Indigenous people were only allowed to vote if they had given up their Indian Status and women were not yet allowed to vote.
Referendums aside, the lowest turnout of eligible Canadian voters actually took place during the 2008 federal election, with just 58.8% of eligible voters casting a ballot.
The 2008 election saw Stephen Harper win his second of three terms as prime minister of Canada.
Back to this year’s election, Elections Canada says that in the coming months they will finalize many of these estimated numbers and publish the official voting results.
