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New West voting beats neighbouring cities

The deadline for the referendum on electoral reform passed on Friday afternoon.
Referendum
Ballot packages had to be returned by Friday afternoon for the referendum on proportional representation.

New Westminster voters seem to be following the provincial average in returning their electoral reform ballots.

Voters had until Friday at 4:30 p.m. to get their ballots on electoral reform in, with the deadline extended by a week to accommodate rotating postal strikes. Elections BC had received about 41 per cent of the ballots sent out by Friday morning, but had screened 37.1 per cent – New Westminster ballot counts showed a rate of return of 37.3 per cent, higher than their counterparts in Burnaby but substantially lower than the provincial high of 52.4 per cent in the riding of Saanich North and the Islands.

The latest count on Elections BC was recorded on Friday morning, and it showed an overall return rate in the province of 41 per cent (those ballots dropped off on Friday and those expected in the mail on Friday were not included in this count).

The referendum asked voters whether they wanted to change to a proportional representation (PR) system or keep the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. There were also three choices of PR that voters could rank, dual member proportional, mixed member proportional and rural-urban proportional.

As of Friday morning, Elections BC had received about 1,356,000 ballot packages back. There are 3,297,395 registered voters in British Columbia.

Both sides of the campaign, yes and no, were given $500,000 by the provincial government for campaigning but much of the campaigning was split on party lines with the NDP and Green MLAs pushing for proportional representation and the BC Liberals pushing to keep the current first-past-the-post system.

The lowest return rate on Friday morning was the riding of Surrey-Whalley with 22.4 per cent ballots sent in.

The four Burnaby ridings all were lower than New Westminster with Burnaby-Edmonds at 29.1 per cent, Burnaby-Deer Lake at 31.4 per cent, Burnaby North at 33.9 per cent and Burnaby-Lougheed at 34.2 per cent. (These will change as the final ballots are screened.)