Vancouver byelection advance voting sees record turnout

Vancouver’s ruling ABC party is speaking out against the way advance byelection voting is being conducted – months after councillors approved the city’s plans.

A record number of people cast early ballots in Vancouver’s byelection, but the mayor’s ruling party isn’t happy with how the vote was conducted.

On Wednesday, more than 2,800 people cast their ballots, a 44 per cent increase compared to the 2017 byelection.

Vancouver resident Wah Gee, said he stood in line for about an hour and 15 minutes.

“Usually when there’s a turnout like that, then my guess is that it’s the people, the electorate, they want a change,” he said.

1 ballot every 15 seconds

Katrina Leckovic, the city clerk and chief election officer, said she was surprised and pleased with the number of people that came out to vote.

“We were processing one ballot every 15 seconds,” she said.

Not fast enough, according to Ken Sim’s ABC party, which is running two city council candidates in a race to fill two vacant council seats.

In a press release, the party called out the long lines that people had to wait in at City Hall.

ABC candidate Ralph Kaisers told CTV News he received a number of text messages from people saying they decided not to vote Wednesday because of the line.

“A little concerned about how the elections office for the city of Vancouver set that up yesterday.”

Advance vote

The party added that in 2022 during the municipal election, residents had access to 22 advance voting stations.

Leckovic said you can’t compare a general election to a by-election.

“We are required to hold two advance voting days,” she said.

“We modeled our plan this time off of a previous byelection experience and the voter turnout being historically low. We anticipated that the two advance voting days would be sufficient. We also are working within a $2 million budget, which is less than half of what a typical general election would come with and that results in reduced locations, reduced staff and other reduced expenditures.”

Leckovic added if ABC wanted changes, the party should have addressed that months ago in council.

In January council approved a report outlining staff’s byelection plans.

‘Incredible job’

Green Coun. Pete Fry said he found the comments directed toward city staff offensive.

“To come back after the fact and – frankly – repudiate our staff and embarrass our staff as if they’re not doing a competent job is offensive to me,” he said. “I think they did an incredible job.”

Leckovic said to alleviate some challenges at the next advance poll on April 1, staff will be setting up more chairs, increasing the number of registration clerks on site and operating two vote counting machines.

General voting day in the byelection is set for April 5.