vancouver city hall rejects allegation of 'voter suppression' in byelection
dan fumano: a vancouver political party has accused the city of "widespread voter suppression" in recent byelection, an allegation the city rejects
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there was an hour-long wait to vote in the vancouver byelection at the west point grey community centre on april 5.
postmedia staff
vancouver city council and staff say they will learn from the failures of last month’s byelection, when multi-hour wait times deterred many people from voting.
but one local political party is accusing city hall of “widespread voter suppression,” even suggesting the delays may have been intentional. the city’s election office and other politicians strongly rejected the charge.
on tuesday morning at city hall, city clerk katrina leckovic, who served as the chief election officer for the april byelection, made a presentation to council about lessons learned.
“we acknowledge the length of time voters have to wait is not acceptable. (for the 2026 general municipal election) we will employ a number of strategies to improve wait times,” leckovic said. for next year’s vote, the city will have larger polling locations, more equipment, and more staff, she said.
after the presentation, abc coun. lisa dominato introduced an amendment directing city staff to report before the 2026 general election with a “pre-election readiness update,” including budgetary implications for expanding the number of advance voting days and ensuring sufficient staff to minimize voter wait times. council approved dominato’s amendment unanimously.
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the budget for a 2017 byelection was $1.54 million, or the equivalent of $1.93 million in 2025 dollars, the staff report said. between 2017 and 2025, election worker wages had increased by 56 per cent.
the estimated budget for the 2025 byelection was $2 million, and the city cut the number of voting places in half from 50 in 2017 to only 20 this year, a decision driven in part by cost.
city staff had expected around 60,000 voters, with 8,600 voting by mail, 5,400 casting ballots on advance voting days, and 45,000 voters turning out on election day. these projections were influenced by vancouver’s 2017 byelection, which saw 43,831 voters turn out on election day.
but for this year’s byelection, a total of 67,962 votes were cast, including 54,584 on election day. many potential voters were deterred from voting because of long waits, which in some cases reached up to three-and-a-half hours.
the april 5 byelection was held to replace two city councillors who had resigned — the greens’ adriane carr and onecity’s christine boyle.
meanwhile, team for a livable vancouver issued a statement monday saying that the city’s decision to reduce election staff and voting places led to long wait times, which the party alleges “was the result of mismanagement or outright intention.”
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the party said some parts of the city were affected more than others by reductions in voting places and service.
“there is no question that this byelection was poorly planned, and discouraged thousands of vancouver voters from exercising their democratic rights,” team candidate colleen hardwick said in the party’s media release. hardwick was elected to council in 2018 representing the non-partisan association before quitting the party. she ran for mayor with the upstart team party in the 2022 election, finishing third.
in last month’s byelection, hardwick finished third, with about half the number of votes of the first- and second-place finishers — cope’s sean orr and onecity’s lucy maloney — who were sworn into council last month. team’s other candidate, theodore abbott, finished fifth.
vancouver’s election office said it “strongly rejects the accusation of voter suppression.”
in an emailed statement tuesday, the election office said its non-partisan staff take the “responsibility to uphold the integrity of the democratic process very seriously.”
“staff recognize the negative impact that wait times had on the voting experience and are committed to addressing these challenges in the planning for the 2026 general election,” the statement said.
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dominato, speaking after tuesday’s council meeting, said she understood people’s frustration with long wait times, but she “would disagree strongly with this premise that it was intentional or nefarious.”
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