Election day

General voting day across British Columbia is Saturday, October 17, 2026. Voting places are open 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time. Local elections are held province-wide on the third Saturday of October every four years, so every municipality in the Capital Regional District votes on the same day.

If that Saturday does not work for you, you do not have to wait for it: every jurisdiction holds advance voting on Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at a minimum, most hold more days than that, and some offer mail ballots. Employers are not required to give time off to vote in a local election, which is part of why advance voting exists.

What to bring

If your municipality keeps a list of registered electors and you are on it, nothing: you give your name and get a ballot. If you are registering at the voting place - which every municipality allows, and some require - bring two pieces of identification showing who you are and where you live, at least one of them signed. A driver's licence, a BCID card, a Certificate of Indian Status, an Indigenous governing body's citizenship or membership card, a utility bill with your address, or a credit or debit card all count. If none of your documents shows your address, you can make a solemn declaration about where you live instead.

The full rules, including what non-resident property electors have to bring, are on how to vote.

What is on the ballot

More than most people expect. You vote for a mayor, for several councillors at once, and for school trustees, and the number of councillors depends on where you live:

In the Capital Regional District's three electoral areas - Juan de Fuca, Salt Spring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands - there is no mayor and council. Voters there elect a regional director, and on the islands also Islands Trust trustees. School trustee races, regional directors and Islands Trust seats are outside the scope of this scorecard, which grades candidates for mayor and council.

Because you are electing a whole council rather than one representative, a ballot asks you to mark several names - up to the number of seats. Marking fewer than the maximum is allowed and your ballot still counts.

Where to vote

Voting places are chosen and published by each municipality's Chief Election Officer, and where you vote depends on which municipality you live in rather than what your mailing address says. If you are not certain, check your address - the boundaries surprise people, and a ballot cast in the wrong municipality is not a ballot.

The three electoral areas - Juan de Fuca, Salt Spring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands - have no municipal hall of their own. Their elections are run by the Capital Regional District, which publishes its own 2026 election page and voter information, including mail ballots.

If you need help at the voting place

Voting places must be as accessible as reasonably possible. You can ask an election official to bring a ballot out to you at the curb, ask an official, a friend or a relative to help you mark it, or bring a translator. Whoever helps you swears to keep your ballot secret and to mark it exactly as you direct.

Afterwards

Preliminary results are released by each municipality on election night, usually within a few hours of the polls closing, and are declared official a few days later once the count is finalized. Each municipality publishes its own; this site does not carry results.

Before you go

A council ballot asks for several names at once, and that is a lot to decide in the booth. Our scorecard grades every confirmed candidate in the region on transit, housing, climate, arts and the rest of what a council decides, and each candidate's page prints on a single sheet, so you can mark your choices at the kitchen table and carry them in with you.

Voting rules and registration: how to vote