MONTREAL – Quebec’s chief electoral office has confirmed that a record-breaking number of Quebecers temporarily living outside the province have registered to vote in the upcoming election.
At 18,273 electors, it’s the highest number of out-of-province voters in the past 25 years.
“The previous ‘record’ was 16,606 registered electors for the November 30, 1998 general election,” Chief Electoral Officer Jacques Drouin said in a statement, although he also noted that in the end, 13,435 electors actually voted.
The majority of out-of-province voters hail Florida, with more than 13,600 registered electors (74 per cent of the total). Drouin also said that of the 117 countries represented, 624 registered electors came from France and 238 from United Kingdom.
Online registration was launched this year and it was the most popular choice for most electors. Forty-two per cent of requests came via the Internet (more than 7,000), while other requests came via email (28 per cent), fax (22 per cent) and “snail” mail (8 per cent).
Out-of-province Quebecers are eligible to vote if they have been living outside of Quebec for no more than two years, and government employees working outside of Quebec are also eligible without the two-year time constraint.
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