When more than two million people turned out for advance polling, many felt it was a sign Canadians would turn out in droves on election day. It appears it didn't turn out that way.
Voter turnout for Monday's election exceeded 2008's dismal electoral participation -- but not by much.
Preliminary results show that more than 14.5 million eligible Canadians cast ballots this year, or 61.4 per cent.
That number is higher than it has been the past three elections.
The 2008 elections saw a record low turnout of 59 per cent.
But more numbers are still coming in as vote counting and recounts continue.
The apparently low voter turnout this year comes as s bit of a surprise since there was such stronger-than-expected turnout at advance polls over the Easter weekend.
But it appears that many Canadians voted early mostly because they could, not necessarily because they were more interested in this election than the last one.
It still remains to be seen how strong the youth vote really was and whether the vote mobs movements, the YouTube videos and the Facebook groups led to more voters in the 18 to 24 age group showing up at the polls.
Voting among Canadians 18 to 24 hit a low of 37.4 per cent in 2008. Calculating youth turnout for this year could take a few weeks.
