Neighbourhood by neighbourhood, how the municipal election played out

Photo: Shannon Waters

As the dust settles on this year’s local elections, municipalities are starting to release poll by poll results. We took a look at how mayoral candidates did in municipalities where poll by poll data is available, including Victoria, Langford, and Sooke. Sidney has also released poll by poll voting numbers but Mayor Cliff McNeill-Smith was acclaimed again this year.

Advanced voting up slightly in Victoria this election; schools top choice for voters on Oct. 15

According to the City of Victoria’s preliminary poll-by-poll voting results, advanced polls were only slightly more popular in 2022 than 2018, accounting for 16.9% of all ballots cast this year compared to 16.1% in 2018. With 3,948 total votes recorded, City Hall was by far the most popular advanced poll with 10 times the number of ballots cast there compared to two other advanced polling stations. UVic say 376 Victoria voters visited while Our Place drew 309 voters.

On general voting day, Oaklands Elementary School was the busiest of Victoria’s 13 polling places with 1,976 ballots cast, narrowly beating Central Middle School where 1,943 people went to vote.

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SJ Burnside was the only polling station to see fewer than 1,000 votes cast but just barely—997 voters visited the quiet polling place in the city on Oct. 15.

Cook Street Village Activity Centre—where lines reportedly stretched more than two hours at times—reported a relatively low number of votes at 1,354. Only SJ Burnside, Sir James Douglas Elementary School (1,348 votes), and Central Baptist Church (1,225) saw a lower volume of voters.

Alto dominated all election day polls

The preliminary polling place data also illustrates the decisiveness of mayor-elect Marianne Alto’s win over fellow councillor Stephen Andrew. Alto received more votes than Andrew at every polling opportunity, and several locations saw Alto’s vote share more than double Andrew’s.

At George Jay Elementary School, Andrew received 30% of the 1,254 votes Alto garnered while the margin between the two top mayoral contenders was narrowest at SJ Burnside where the vote split 54% in Alto’s favour.

Map: Google Maps; Illustration by Jolene Rudisuela

Andrew’s strongest performance came via mail-in ballots—he received 1,205 votes compared to Alto’s 1,267—and at special voting places in care facilities where 108 votes went to Andrew and 117 went to Alto.

Mayoral candidate Brendan Marshall received 1,513 total votes—5.5% of the total mayoral vote share—while the five other candidates on the ballot accounted for 3% with a total of 804 votes between them.

Young won advanced polls in Langford while Goodmanson got most votes on Oct. 15

Advanced voting options were also good to outgoing Langford Mayor Stew Young, who saw his strongest showing against successful challenger Scott Goodmanson on ballots cast before Oct. 15. Young was especially dominant at special voting places, where he received 51 votes to Goodmanson’s eight. Other advanced polls also gave Young the edge with 1,116 ballots versus 1,006 for Goodmanson.

Goodmanson, however, dominated general election day voting, taking at least 55.7% of mayoral votes cast at each of Langford’s three polling places—slightly above his overall vote share of 54.2%.

Voters who cast a ballot at Happy Valley School were the most likely to vote for Young, with 44.3% supporting the incumbent. Goodmanson’s strongest showing was at Millstream School where 59% of voters chose the challenger.

Meanwhile, 158 of the 8,437 Langford residents who voted this year did not like either choice for mayor and did not vote for either candidate. At nearly 1.9% of total ballots cast, that is twice the percentage of Victoria voters who made no choice for mayor in a field eight candidates deep.  In Sooke, only 0.3% did not vote for any of the three mayoral candidates on the ballot.

Tait took the most votes at every voting opportunity in Sooke

In Sooke, incumbent Mayor Maja Tait was way ahead of her challengers at every voting opportunity. Tait, who walked away with 74.5% of the total vote, received 763 votes during all advanced opportunities in Sooke—more than 4.5 times as many as her most successful challenger, Mick Rhodes.

On general voting day, Tait received 74% of total votes cast, while Rhodes won 18.5% and John Knops got 0.7%.