Thousands of Manitobans cast their votes in first few days of advanced voting

An election official hands back to a voter her marked ballot to place in a ballot box. (The Canadian Press/Chris Young)

The Manitoba election is still a week away but Manitobans are already busy casting their votes at the advanced polls.

Advanced voting started on Saturday and numbers from Elections Manitoba show around 50,000 people have already cast their ballot.

Saturday was the busiest day with around 32,000 votes cast, beating out the busiest day in 2019 when 22,000 votes were placed.

As of Monday afternoon, another 18,000 votes were also cast. Mike Ambrose, the director of communications and public information for Elections Manitoba, said more people are heading to the advanced polls.

"We do see the number of advanced votes increase year over year. So that's following that trend. It's too soon to say whether that will result in an overall increase in turnout or not," said Ambrose.

The 2023 election could surpass 2019's advanced voting total. 113,000 votes were cast last election.

Ambrose said there are more advanced polling stations throughout the province compared to 2019 and one of the more popular spots to vote is where people like to shop.

"People really seem to like voting at the mall. There's been a lot of voting in the malls in Winnipeg and the malls have been some of our busier locations."

Ambrose said, in the last two elections, around 25 per cent of eligible voters decided to go to advanced polls.

More locations are expected to be available throughout the province the rest of the week, said Ambrose, including on university campuses.

Advanced polling locations can be found online and Ambrose is reminding people to bring ID.

Advanced voting will go until Sept. 30.