Langford and Colwood don’t offer mail-in voting, and no one can make them

This story was originally published in The Westshore newsletter, Aug. 16, 2022. 

If you’re planning to be out of town between Oct. 5 and 15, you might not be able to vote in the Westshore’s municipal elections.

Though advance voting options are required in municipal elections, voting by mail is not. In fact, a lot of the election procedure is up to the local governments.

Municipal elections in BC happen on the third week of October every four years. Each community follows the same deadlines for candidate registration and advanced voting; campaign financing is monitored by BC Elections; and the voter registration list is administered by the province. That’s all laid out in the Local Government Act. But the similarities, at least legally, end there.

For example in Sooke, automated voting machines are allowed. Colwood requires names of the candidates to be printed in a random order on the ballot, whereas in Metchosin they appear alphabetically. Highlands hasn’t updated its election bylaw since 2002, and in View Royal, election signage is not permitted sooner than 30 days before the election.

And, in all but Sooke and View Royal, there are no provisions for mail-in ballots.

Sooke has offered mail-in voting since 2002, when it was an option only for people with a physical disability that prevented them from voting in person.

A handful of readers were alarmed when they learned Langford wasn’t planning to offer mail-in voting, but it’s not a practice many voters take part in at the municipal level. In 2018, 22 people asked for a mail voting ballot in Sooke—but only 14 came back. The last election was the first time View Royal opted to offer mail voting, and only eight people took advantage. View Royal’s chief election officer Ken Schaalje expects to see a few more this year because COVID has changed the way we participate in public, but even he was surprised to see how few votes were cast by post.

Highlands and Metchosin both say they’re too small to make the mail-in option worthwhile—that, and the fact that no one has asked. (In 2018 the entire Highlands council was uncontested, so literally no one needed to vote.)

Langford, the largest municipality in the Westshore, has never offered mail-in voting. Chief Election Officer Marie Watmough said she’s not aware of there being any requests for mail-in options, except for one person who called this year. If Langford wanted to offer mail in voting, council would have to add it to the bylaw.

Colwood also does not offer mail-in voting. Its Chief Election Officer, Marcy Lalande, thought the cost and timing might be prohibitive. There’s a limited amount of time between when the list of candidates is finalized to when ballots would need to be mailed, and all the municipalities are getting their ballots printed at the same time.

Metchosin and Sooke have relatively high voter turnout (44% and 42%, respectively), higher than the provincial average of 36%.

Colwood got 32% of eligible voters at the polls, and View Royal only had 25%.