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It has been an exceptionally long federal election campaign but voting day has finally come as Canadians exercise their rights coast to coast.
There are 338 seats across the country in which Canadians will vote for their desired MP, which will ultimately decide who will get the county’s top job. A total of 169 seats are needed to declare a majority for a single party. Polls will be open for 12 hours and voting hours are staggered so that the majority of results are available at approximately the same time across the country. In order to vote, electors must bring proof of identity and address with them to the polling station. If you left it too late and have not yet registered to vote in the federal general election you can do so at the polls.
By law, all electors must be given three consecutive hours by their employer to ensure they can cast a vote. Recently, the ban on the premature transmission of election results was lifted so Canadians can now tweet and share election results from different provinces as they become available.
While people are more familiar with the major five parties, Bloc Québécois, Conservative, Green Party, Liberal Party, and NDP, there are actually 25 party's running in this year’s election. Beginning at 7:00 p.m. EST, results will be available through Elections Canada by riding, major centre, province, territory, or party leader.
Currently, there are 25,638,379 registered voters in Canada, but this number does not include those who may register at the polls. More than 3.6 million electors cast a ballot at the four days of advance polls and an additional 70,231 people took advantage of temporary Elections Canada offices at school campuses, Friendship Centres, and community centres.
Polls open at 8:30 a.m. in Central and Atlantic Canada, as well as in Newfoundland. In the Pacific region, including B.C., the polls open at 7:00 a.m. and in Saskatchewan and Mountain time, polls open at 7:30 a.m. Your address is needed to determine which polling station you must vote at. You can refer to your voting card to find out where you are required to vote, or go online to elections.ca and fill in the online form.
In the Kelowna-Lake Country riding there are three candidates to choose from; Norah Bowman NDP, Ron Cannan Conservative Party, and Stephen Fuhr Liberal. In the Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola riding there are four candidates, Dan Albas Conservative Party, Robery Mellalieu Green Party, Karley Scott Liberal, and Angelique Wood NDP.
The polls will close at 7:00 p.m. in B.C. and first results from Eastern Canada are expected around 4:00 p.m. PDT.
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