Voter turnout for municipal elections continues to remain lower than provincial and federal votes, but small increases seen on Saturday represent meaningful movement in engagement, according to David Black, a political science associate professor at Royal Roads University.

“The turnout story in this election, broadly speaking, is a good one,” said Black. “You know, even in Langford.”

Langford turnout percentages hovered in the low 20s or high teens in the three decades Stew Young dominated with seven straight mayoral victories.

Following his 2022 loss to Scott Goodmanson, Young returned to politics and wrested the mayoral chair back—and Langford saw an 8.9 percentage point voting jump to 32.91% from 24%.

“It's always the case that great races inspire people to vote,” Black said.

Voter turnout is determined by dividing the number of ballots cast by the estimated number of eligible voters as reported by CivicInfoBC. All figures are preliminary. 

Potentially aided by more people voting in advance—Victoria’s advance vote total doubled, for example—overall, voter turnout was up across the board in the CRD.

Oak Bay and Central Saanich registered voter turnout increased by roughly 16 percentage points, and there was a nearly 14 percentage point increase in Sooke.

Saanich’s turnout jumped almost 12 percentage points to 42.7% from 30.8% in 2022. The Highlands increased by 9.6 percentage points, and Colwood’s jumped by 6.3 percentage points. Victoria’s increased by 5.6 percentage points to 42.43%.

Metchosin saw a 4.68 percentage point increase and scored the region’s high-water mark for participation, with 51.96% of eligible voters casting ballots. 

Having two elections running concurrently may have helped to get more people talking about the vote, too, Black said.

“It raises the salience, the visibility of voting and elections, and I also think—and I'm taking more of a kind of risk here intellectually—I think that there is greater interest in governance in general.”

Black said federally, we’ve gone through a populist wave where there was a lot of anger at the government, but that’s changed.

Black called it speculative and anecdotal, but he said trade wars and sovereignty threats have "led many people to kind of look to government as the solution, not as the problem.”

Having said that, civic elections continue to take a backseat to federal and provincial votes.

He said people rank their elections: “Federal is most important. Provincial, less so. Civic, even less so.”

Over the last nine federal elections held in the 2000s, on average, 63.73% of eligible voters cast ballots. 

On average, 59.86% of eligible voters turned out in the seven BC provincial elections held so far in the 2000s. 

BC civic elections traditionally average between 35% and 40% turnout provincewide. 

Black said people generally view local government as a tertiary-level service provider more than a primary political actor when compared with provincial or federal levels.

"They don't often see it as government in the way that we might see the legislature or the parliament in Ottawa,” Black said.

“I think there's work to be done with respect to civics education on that.”

‍CRD municipalities with estimated number of eligible voters, percentage of participating voters, and change from the

 2022 election

Colwood      (17,297)   31.81%   +6.30%

Sidney         (10,942)   32.43%   +5.25%

Esquimalt    (15,020)   32.87%    +9.27%

Langford      (46,453)   32.91%   +8.91%

View Royal  (9,775)     33.47%    +7.49%

Sooke          (13,706)   39.66%    +13.83%

N. Saanich   (11,000)   40.42%    +4.99%

C. Saanich   (17,085)   40.58%    +15.77%

Victoria         (73,722)   42.43%    +5.62%

Saanich        (89,617)   42.74%    +11.94%

Highlands     (2,127)     46.17%    +9.65%

Oak Bay       (14,539)   48.60%    +16.17%

Metchosin     (4,309)     51.96%    +4.68%