The City of Vancouver’s election office says 2,876 ballots were cast at city hall Wednesday in the first of two advance voting days leading up to the April 5 byelection.
The number of people who voted at what was the city’s only polling station represents a 44.6 per cent increase over the first day of advance voting in the 2017 byelection, when 1,988 ballots were cast.
“Historically, byelections have seen lower turnout,” the city’s election office said Thursday in an emailed statement. “Yesterday's strong participation is a powerful testament to Vancouverites’ commitment to shaping our community’s future.”
It remains to be seen whether that positive trend will continue into the next advance voting day April 1 and carry on to election day. But election officials pointed to another promising sign of participation: an uptick in people choosing to mail in ballots.
In the 2017 race, which saw a total voter turnout of 11 per cent, vote-by-mail was only available to persons with disabilities and people who were out of town on election day. This time around, the option is available to all eligible voters, with more than 6,300 requests received as of Thursday.
In 2017, requests totalled 647.
Vote-by-mail
The April 5 byelection has the same number of advance voting days and locations as the 2017 vote. But unlike 2017, when the city opened 50 polling stations on byelection day, this year’s vote will only have 25 stations.
City clerk Katrina Leckovic, who doubles as the city’s chief election officer, told council in January that the stations will be equally distributed around the city. Cutting the number of locations in half will also save the city money on hiring staff, she said, noting the city’s byelection team would be pushing vote-by-mail.
The estimated cost of the byelection is $2 million.
This year’s race is unlike the 2017 byelection in many ways — the 2017 vote was to fill one council seat and nine school trustee positions. The April 5 vote is to fill two council seats on a council where Mayor Ken Sim and his six ABC Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»councillors already hold a majority.
A total of 13 candidates are vying for the two seats.
They are Annette Reilly (Green Party), Lucy Maloney (OneCity), Sean Orr (COPE), Colleen Hardwick and Theodore Abbott (TEAM for a Livable for Vancouver), Jaime Stein and Ralph Kaisers (ABC Vancouver), Rollergirl, Gerry McGuire, Karen Litzcke, Guy Dubé, Charles Ling and Jeanifer Decena.
'Important to vote today'
Some of their names were mentioned in interviews with voters who lined up to cast a ballot Wednesday, including Emile Fretier-Gauvin who arrived at city hall a few minutes before the polling station opened at 8 a.m.
He voted for Orr and Maloney, saying it was important to add more non-ABC voices to council; Christine Boyle represented OneCity before she was elected as an NDP MLA and Adriane Carr was a longtime Green Party councillor before she resigned in January.
“I thought it was so important to vote today because we lost two of our more progressive seats on the city council,” said Fretier-Gauvin, who emphasized the importance of voting, no matter what a person’s politics.
“I'm quite young [25], and it's easy to feel a lack of hope with the future, and my vote might not change anything. But as somebody who watches the city council meetings, it's important to feel yourself be represented, even if it's by a small portion.”
'It's a privilege'
Tim Sutherland, another early bird to the polling station, lamented the fact that more people don’t vote in elections, particularly byelections.
“It’s my duty as a citizen to vote,” he said. “Voting isn't a right, it's a privilege. If you don't vote and then you get bad consequences, you have nobody to blame but yourself. It is important that people vote federally, provincially, municipally. This idea that people don't vote or don't care, to me, is disgraceful.”
Sutherland declined to say who he was going to vote for, but echoed a comment made by Fretier-Gauvin about the need for political balance on the 11-member council.
“I think that [ABC] have done some good things, but too much power is not a good thing because you don't get a clear view,” he said. “And sometimes, if you have a monopoly, the changes you make necessarily aren't good for the city.”
He said it’s important to hear different voices on issues such as homelessness, the city budget, taxes and cost of living, which has pushed many residents out of Vancouver.
Mayor Ken Sim
While BIV was conducting an interview with Sutherland, the mayor arrived at the front entrance of city hall and agreed to answer questions about the byelection, including whether he thought the vote would be an assessment of his two-year-old administration.
“I know our opponents will say this is a referendum, if they win,” Sim said. “If not, they'll come out and say [they lost] because there was not a lot of voter turnout. This is really going to be an exercise in who gets their supporters out.”
Still, he said, he wished more people would vote.
“We would love for everyone to come out and exercise their right,” he said. “There are places all over the world where they are literally willing to give up their lives for the right to vote. And we have that ability here, and it's a pretty amazing thing.”
Added Sim: “You can have all the opinions all you want, but you really shouldn't complain if you don’t vote because you had an opportunity to make your voice heard by either voting for our party or someone else.”
Then the mayor gave his best pitch on why voters should choose Kaisers and Stein, saying they “stand head and shoulders” above the other candidates.
“Look at the actual backgrounds of the individuals that are running, look at the quality of their character, and what they've done for our city, then form your opinion,” he said.
'The most important level'
Carol Reardon, who pays close attention to municipal affairs in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and regularly posts her takes via the X social media platform, said she voted Wednesday for Maloney and Orr.
“[Maloney] strikes me as being a very decent person, smart, all that good stuff — so that's why I voted for her,” said Reardon as she was leaving city hall. “I voted for Sean because I think that he's got integrity, and I think he will provide a strong voice to criticize ABC and is capable of working with OneCity and the Greens.”
Reardon described municipal government as the closest to voters.
“I perhaps stand out as someone who's very interested and engaged in municipal politics, and it’s really the most important level, in terms of it affecting your daily life in lots of ways,” she said.
“There are a lot of the things that people complain about within the jurisdiction of the municipal government, and yet people tend to not vote. So that's why I always vote.”
'Challenging for voters'
Wednesday’s advance voting day attracted a steady stream of voters in the morning and then grew significantly in the afternoon, with people waiting in a lineup that curled around city hall.
The lineup triggered ABC to issue a news release that complained about there being only one polling station — a fact the mayor and ABC councillors knew about in January, but did nothing to change it, said Green Party Coun. Pete Fry in a post on the X social media platform.
In response to the lineup, the city’s election office said in its email to BIV that it cannot add an extra location for the April 1 advance vote.
That’s because statutory requirements under the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Charter mandate that advance voting locations, dates and hours must be advertised at least six days before an advance voting day.
Additional resources would also be needed.
“However, we understand that long lines are challenging for voters, and we're exploring ways to reduce wait times at city hall on April 1, including reconfiguring the voting space to create more room, adding more staff, and managing the flow of the line,” the election office said.
'A boycott of the process'
Terri Evans, a Langara College political science instructor, said byelections have historically seen a low number of people cast a ballot. She pointed to a recent , where 1.15 per cent of 101,868 eligible voters participated.
Rosey Manhas won 696 of 1,169 votes.
“It’s basically a boycott of the process,” Evans said. “Voters are basically happy enough or they just don't care what the school board does. Or maybe [a person’s vote] won't change the dynamics on the school board. But it’s really sad to have that lack of interest by the voters.”
When told of the number of voters who showed up at the March 26 advance poll in Vancouver, and the increase in mail-in ballot requests, Evans said she was encouraged by the interest.
At the same time, she’s not optimistic a huge number of Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»voters will cast a ballot.
“If Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»gets over 20 per cent, I’d be surprised,” she said, noting the byelection is being overshadowed by the federal election campaign. “I'm not even sure I heard on the news last night that the polls had opened for the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»election.”
She said the current political climate pitting the United States against Canada, coupled with the fact there are fewer news sources operating in Vancouver, make it difficult to engage citizens about the importance of voting in a byelection.
Also, the fact that Sim and his ABC colleagues hold a majority on council may keep ABC supporters from voting because they know the results will not affect the party’s power, she said.
She believes voters wanting to “send a message” to ABC are more likely to cast a ballot.
“Losing two left-of-centre voices from different parties does reduce the amount of perspective that's put into the public sphere, and so people who feel that perspective is needed have an incentive to come out,” Evans said.
