{"id":403114,"date":"2011-04-27T21:56:48","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T21:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/04\/27\/canada-early-voting-turnout-high\/"},"modified":"2011-04-27T21:56:48","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T21:56:48","slug":"canada-early-voting-turnout-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/04\/27\/canada-early-voting-turnout-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada early voting turnout ‘high’"},"content":{"rendered":"

27 April 2011<\/span> Last updated at<\/span> 17:56 ET<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

More than two million Canadians have cast early votes ahead of the 2 May general election, marking a 35% rise compared with the 2008 election, officials have said.<\/p>\n

Elections Canada said the number indicated a strong turnout but warned the count was only preliminary, with not all polling stations reporting.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the New Democratic Party has made unexpected gains in opinion polls.<\/p>\n

A federal general election was prompted by a non-confidence vote in parliament.<\/p>\n

The vote came after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority government was found to be in contempt of parliament because of its failure to disclose the full costs of anti-crime programmes, corporate tax cuts and plans to purchase stealth fighter jets from the US.<\/p>\n

‘High turnout’<\/span><\/p>\n

Elections Canada reported that 2m Canadians had taken advantage of early voting on Friday, Saturday and Monday, a 34.5% increase from 1.5m voters in 2008.<\/p>\n

“There was a higher than expected turnout this past weekend at the advance polls,” Marc Mayrand, Canada’s top election official, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Harper’s Conservatives were seen as frontrunners going into the election, but recent polls suggest the left-leaning New Democratic Party is making surprising gains.<\/p>\n

An online poll<\/a> by polling firm Angus Reid for the Toronto Star newspaper, released on Wednesday, placed the Conservative Party at 35%, below the number needed to secure a majority of the 308 seats in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

A Canadian political party needs roughly 40% of the vote to win a majority in the House of Commons. Winning a majority is also possible if the gap between the front-runners is more than 10 percentage points.<\/p>\n

The same survey put the New Democrats at 30%, while the Liberal Party, which entered the campaign in second place in the polls, trailed at 22%.<\/p>\n

However, analysts say the New Democratic Party and the Liberals are vying for the same segment of the electorate, which could split voters and ultimately contribute to a Conservative win.<\/p>\n

“The possibility of a majority mandate for the Conservatives hinges on voter turnout and on the way the centre-left vote will split in the ridings [electoral districts] that are being defended by Liberal incumbents,” Angus Reid said in a release.<\/p>\n

Mr Harper has said that if his party fails to win a majority, the opposition parties will defeat his government in the House of Commons and form a coalition.<\/p>\n

But Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff has denied plans for a coalition, and the New Democrats’ leader Jack Layton has said he is prepared to work with any party to advance his agenda, which includes boosting the corporate tax rate and introducing a cap-and-trade system to combat greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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