Vancouver voters dealt a blow to Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC party Saturday, throwing their support behind two left-leaning candidates in a byelection that drew higher-than-normal turnout. Read More
Vancouver voters turned out in droves Saturday, throwing their support behind the COPE and OneCity candidates
Vancouver voters turned out in droves Saturday, throwing their support behind the COPE and OneCity candidates
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Vancouver voters dealt a blow to Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC party Saturday, throwing their support behind two left-leaning candidates in a byelection that drew higher-than-normal turnout.
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Just before 1 a.m. Sunday, with 27 out of 27 polling stations reporting, Sean Orr of COPE and Lucy Maloney of OneCity led the other candidates by a wide margin, capturing 34,448 and 33,732 votes, respectively, according to unofficial results posted online.
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Orr campaigned on a promise to, among other things, “fight to protect tenants from demovictions and exploitation” and “fight for fully funded and free public transit.” Maloney similarly said she would “strengthen the tenant protections that exist in the Broadway plan” and work to improve road and pedestrian safety in the city.
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Colleen Hardwick of TEAM came in third with 17,352 votes, followed by Green candidate Annette Reilly with 15,045 votes and Theodore Abbott, also of TEAM, with 11,581 votes.
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ABC Vancouver had hoped to solidify its majority with candidates Jaime Stein and Ralph Kaisers, but Stein received only 9,267 votes and Kaisers garnered 8,915 votes.
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While the ABC party still holds the balance of power on council with seven of 11 seats, the byelection results showed clear disenchantment with the ruling party, which won a landslide victory in the 2022 municipal election on a promise to fix a dysfunctional city hall and improve public safety.
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Just under 68,000 ballots were cast, representing a turnout of 15 per cent of registered voters.
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“This reflects a 40 per cent increase in voter turnout from the 2017 byelection, when 48,645 ballots were cast,” the city said in a news release.
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An additional 5,430 ballots were cast by mail.
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Vancouver’s byelection was marked by lineups of more than one to two or more hours at voting stations across the city.
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Once the voting stations closed at 8 p.m., anyone who was still in line got a chance to cast their ballot, according to a post from the city.
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Social media was flooded with comments about the lengthy queues.
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The elections office said it modelled its operations based on data from the previous two byelections, and this one had “significantly higher” voter turnout comparatively.
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After record voter turnout in advance polling, the office said it added 45 staff members to help with the expected turnout.
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In the lead-up to Saturday’s byelection, candidates running against ABC had dubbed the byelection a referendum on the performance of Vancouver’s reigning party and Mayor Ken Sim.