VANCOUVER – A City of Vancouver report into last month’s council byelection says delays caused by a lack of capacity became a “defining aspect” of election day, which saw some voters wait more than three hours to cast their ballots.
The report to council submitted ahead of a meeting on Tuesday says the long waits came after the city decided to halve the number of voting places from 50 in a 2017 byelection, to 25 on April 5, citing costs, the availability of vote-by-mail and historically low turnout.
The number of election officials assigned to register voters was meanwhile cut from 416 to 150, and combined with an increased turnout, this meant each worker had to deal with more than three times as many voters than in 2017.
Now the city is promising improvements for the general election next year including plans to increase the number and size of polling stations, better staffing and improved accessibility.
The report says byelection planning projected just under 60,000 voters and 67,962 voters ended up casting ballots, which the city said at the time was a 40-per-cent increase from a byelection held in 2017.
The report says each polling station had a priority line for older adults or people with disabilities but the lines did not function as intended at times because of the volume of voters.
Political party TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, whose candidate Colleen Hardwick lost out on a seat by about 16,000 votes, says the byelection saw widespread voter suppression
TEAM points to a separate report by a researcher which estimates more than 33,000 people chose not to vote because of the long lines.
“There is no question that this by-election was poorly planned and discouraged thousands of Vancouver voters from exercising their democratic rights,” Hardwick said in a statement.
Left-of-centre parties secured both council seats in the byelection, with Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party candidates finishing in sixth and seventh place, respectively.
Sim’s party continues to have a majority on council.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 20, 2025
