City of Vancouver admits to ‘flawed planning’ that resulted in long lines at voting stations Saturday

Vancouver elected two new city councillors after a byelection Saturday, and voters across the city have expressed frustration and anger over the long lines at polling stations.

The city is responding to this, acknowledging that it is “unacceptable” that some voters waited up to two hours in line.

“The extended wait times at many voting places reflected flawed planning assumptions for this byelection that informed staff decisions and the plan presented to Council,” city manager Paul Mochrie said in a statement Sunday.

“Recognizing the effort by the City’s elections team to promote and execute this plan, it was clearly insufficient to accommodate the electorate in accessing an efficient voting process.”

Long lines prevented some electors from casting their ballots until hours after the polls officially closed at 8 p.m. This resulted in significant delays in tallying the votes, with preliminary results not available until almost 1 a.m.

Elections communications and outreach manager Nitti Schmid says that in a 2017 byelection, the city had installed 631 staff members across 50 voting stations, for an average of 12 per location. In Saturday’s vote, 264 staff members were deployed to 25 locations, averaging 10 per location. This means voters had half as many polling stations available to them with fewer workers at each this year compared to five years ago.

“These shortcomings are deeply regrettable and I apologize to all voters impacted by delays, as well as to candidates and civic parties,” Mochrie said.

“I, along with City staff, are committed to ensuring that lessons from yesterday’s byelection inform the planning and execution of the 2026 general municipal election and all future City of Vancouver election efforts.”

According to the city, almost 68,000 votes were cast, representing a 15.09 per cent turnout — up 40 per cent compared with the 2017 byelection.