Photo: Brendan Kergin

Elections BC is reporting that at least 52.4 per cent of registered voters voted in the Oct. 24 provincial election.

That's down when compared to the 2017 provincial election (61.18 per cent).

The 2020 percentage is based on the following:

• the number of voters who voted during advance voting, in their electoral district
• the number of voters who voted on Election Day, at their assigned voting place
• an estimate of the number of certification envelopes containing absentee ballots, to be considered at final count
• an estimate of the number of completed vote-by-mail packages containing mail-in ballots, to be considered at final count

According to Elections BC, 670,324 voters cast an advance ballot while 546,877 people went to the polls on Election Day.

As of Oct. 24, Elections BC had received around 525,000 mail-in ballots, according to a news release. That doesn't include mail-in ballots returned by voters in person before the 8 p.m. deadline. Elections BC anticipates voter turnout to increase once those mail-in ballots are accounted for. An estimated 85,000 envelopes containing absentee ballots will also be considered in the final count.

As of Sept. 26, there were 3,485,858 registered voters in B.C.

In 2017, there were 1,986,374 valid votes. Elections BC says the valid votes in 2020 could be comparable, at around 1.8 million. However, the number of registered voters has increased since 2017, resulting in a lower percentage of registered voters voting.

A final tally isn't expected until mid-November.