28,046.
That’s the number of people that voted on Tuesday, the first day of advance-polling for the 2014 mayoral election. It seems a modest number for a city of 6-million people, but it turns out that number is good enough to mark the highest first-day turnout for advance-polling in the city’s history.
The Toronto Star‘s Daniel Dale shared a spreadsheet that breaks down the numbers. According to his number crunching, Don Valley West and Eglinton-Lawrence had the highest turnouts. Between the two wards, more than 2000 people take time out from their day to vote. To put that number in perspective, the two wards had 3.0 and 2.5 per cent of their eligible voters cast a ballot on Tuesday.
Of course, as Toronto Life‘s Steve Kupferman points out, the record breaking turnout could be the result of city simply providing more opportunities for its citizens to vote. There are significant more number of weekday polling stations this year than in past years.
Still, it’s a good sign and something the city, and everyone living in Toronto, should be proud of.
Image via Flickr user Sam Javanrouh.
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Igor Bonifacic is the managing editor of Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter.
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