Election day isn’t until Saturday, but results from the first 12 days of electronic and phone voting suggest that this election may have the lowest turnout in Halifax history. As of Wednesday at 10:30am, 47,476 people have cast votes, representing just 16 percent of eligible voters. Elections officer Cathy Mellet wouldn't make any predictions about total turnout. "With elections," she says, "you just don't know until the end of the day Saturday." But previously Mellet had anticipated that more than half of all votes would be cast electronically, through early voting. If so, and if present trends continue through to the end of electronic voting on Thursday, total voter turnout would be substantially lower than record low 37 percent of last election. The chart above shows the voter turnout so far, by age. The rates for 18- and 19-year-olds may be so high because there are so few on the voting list—just 200 and 2,000, respectively. Most ages have more than 3,000. The older ages are grouped together because the turnout drops from very high—near 23 percent at age 72—to very low, under 10 percent in the 90s, with the expectation that the elderly will vote in person on election day.
