REGINA -- Elections Saskatchewan is seeing records broken for absentee voting registration and advanced voting for the upcoming provincial election.

According to numbers from Elections Saskatchewan, a new single day record for advanced voting was set on Wednesday with 43,409 ballots cast. That broke the previous record set on Tuesday of 41,527. The previous single-day record before 2020 was set in 2016, with 24,615 ballots cast on the first day of advanced voting.

This year has also set a record for the most total advanced votes over the five day period, with 119,394 ballots submitted in since Tuesday. It surpasses the 2016 record of 110,716 over five days.

The province is also seeing a record number of absentee, or vote by mail registrations.

According to Elections Saskatchewan, 61,412 residents have registered to vote by mail, shattering the previous record of 4,420, set in 2016.

"We have entirely had to change and revamp the approach so that we could build the capacity to manage this many vote by mail ballots," Chief Electoral Officer Michael Boda said.

Regina Pasqua was the constituency with the most voters choosing to apply to vote by mail, with 2,674 packages sent out. Outside of Regina and Saskatoon, the Martensville-Warman constituency had the largest number of residents applying to vote by mail, with 1,146 applications approved.

Following the preliminary count of the ballots on election night, a second preliminary count will be held on Wednesday. Boda said the province should have a strong idea of who the winner is by then, but the final vote count will begin on November 7.

Advanced polls close on Saturday, October 24, at 8 p.m. Residents voting by mail have until 8 p.m. on Monday, October 26 to submit their ballot.