Municipal elections in British Columbia are run by each municipality, not by the Province and not by Elections BC. The rules below are the same everywhere in the Capital Regional District; the voting places, the advance voting days and whether mail ballots are offered are set by your own municipality, and the last section links to all of them.
Can I vote?
There are two ways to be eligible, and you only need one of them.
As a resident elector, you can vote where you live if you:
- are 18 or older on general voting day (October 17, 2026), or when you register;
- are a Canadian citizen;
- have lived in B.C. for at least six months before you register;
- live in the municipality or electoral area you are voting in; and
- are not disqualified from voting by law.
You do not need to own property, and you do not need a fixed address. Renters vote on exactly the same terms as owners, and someone living in a tiny home, an RV or without a residential address can register as a resident elector where they usually stay.
As a non-resident property elector, you can vote in a municipality you do not live in if you are a Canadian citizen, 18 or older, have lived in B.C. for six months, and have been the registered owner of property there for at least 30 days. Some conditions come with it: only one owner per property may vote, and where a property has several owners the majority must designate that person in writing. Owning two properties in the same municipality does not get you two votes, property held through a company gets no vote at all, and you cannot vote as both a resident and a non-resident property elector in the same place.
If you live in one municipality and study or work in another, you vote in one of them, not both. Students may choose either their usual home or where they attend school. People living on Reserve are eligible to vote; where they vote depends on whether the Reserve falls inside a municipality's or a regional district's boundaries, so the municipality or the CRD is the place to ask.
Registering to vote
Registering for a local election is not the same thing as being on the provincial or federal list, and it works one of two ways depending on the municipality: some use the Provincial Voters List or keep their own register of electors, and others register everybody at the voting place on the day.
In practice, you do not need to do anything in advance. Every municipality lets you register when you vote. It takes a minute at the table, and the only thing it asks of you is identification.
What identification to bring
If you are already on your municipality's list of registered electors, you do not need identification at all. If you are not - or if your municipality registers everyone on the day - you need two separate pieces of identification that satisfy the election official of who you are and where you live. At least one of them must carry your signature.
Documents that count include:
- a driver's licence;
- a B.C. Identification (BCID) card (a BC Services Card combined with a driver's licence counts as one piece, not two);
- a Certificate of Indian Status;
- a citizenship or membership card issued by an Indigenous governing body;
- a utility bill showing your residential address; or
- a credit or debit card.
If none of your documents shows your address, you can make a solemn declaration about where you live instead. The full list of accepted documents is in the Local Government Elections Regulation, and your municipality's election office will tell you what it accepts if you are not sure. Voting as a non-resident property elector also means bringing proof of ownership - the address or legal description and the title certificate - and the written consent of the other owners if there are any.
The ways to vote
Advance voting. Every jurisdiction in B.C. must hold at least one advance voting opportunity on the tenth day before general voting day, which for this election is Wednesday, October 7, 2026. Most municipalities hold more than one; the CRD's electoral areas, for instance, are voting on October 7 and October 14. Advance voting is open to every eligible voter, with no reason required.
General voting day. Saturday, October 17, 2026, with voting places open 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time. See election day for what to expect.
Mail ballots. Available where a municipality has authorized them in its election bylaw, so this one genuinely varies - ask yours. The CRD offers mail ballots to residents and non-resident property electors in all three electoral areas, and applications there close on September 30, 2026.
Special voting opportunities. Municipalities may run voting at hospitals, long-term care facilities and other places where getting to a voting place is hard. Only the electors they are designated for may vote at them.
You cannot vote online or by phone in a B.C. local election. Nobody will ever email or text you a ballot.
Where to vote
Voting places are set by each municipality's Chief Election Officer and published by that municipality, along with its advance voting days and its mail ballot rules. Not sure which municipality you vote in? The boundaries are not where most people think they are, so check your address first.
- Saanich
- Victoria
- Esquimalt
- Oak Bay
- View Royal
- Colwood
- Langford
- Highlands
- Metchosin
- Central Saanich
- North Saanich
- Sidney
- Sooke
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.
Know how to vote, and not who to vote for yet? See the scorecard: every confirmed candidate in the region, graded on transit, housing, climate, arts and the rest of what a council decides.