Voting on Saturday? Make Sure It’s the Right Poll

British Columbia’s election-packed October will mean some voters will be able to cast ballots twice on Saturday.

As B.C.’s local general election comes to a close, advance polls for the provincial election will also be open in many places on Saturday. In a few communities, both polling stations will be located in the same building.

“The snap election call and overlap with municipal elections has made finding space challenging in some districts, particularly for advance voting,” Elections BC staff wrote in an email to The Tyee.

That means that in some towns, public buildings will house polling stations Saturday for both the municipal general election and provincial advance voting.

The Princeton and District Community Skills Centre will host both the local election and all six days of advanced voting for the provincial election. In Cache Creek, the local community hall will also be open for all advance voting days and the municipal election.

Advance voting runs from Friday through Wednesday, though not every advance location will be open every day.

To avoid potential confusion, Elections BC — which oversees the provincial election but not municipal polls — has said that it will “aim to provide as much information in [each] community as possible in advance” about which poll is for which election. The organization said there will be “on-site support” while saying it is using its website, app, social media and local advertising to further share information.

Elections BC has already sent out voter cards to registered voters with a list of advance polls in each riding and when they are open. Voters can ask local polling workers which election lineup they are in, to ensure they don’t find themselves with the wrong ballot in their hands.

Most polling stations won’t be doing double-duty, however. In some communities, it may be harder to find an open advance poll at all, particularly on the Saturday of advance voting.

Elections BC said there are fewer advance polling stations overall: with only 314, compared to 342 in 2024.

In 2024, roughly 80 per cent of the province’s polling stations were open on the Saturday of advance voting. This year, fewer than two-thirds of polls will be open to voters on the Saturday prior to general election day.

The reduced number of Saturday advance polls mostly affects the province’s geographically largest and least urban ridings.

In the 66,000-square-kilometre riding of North Coast-Haida Gwaii, only the Prince Rupert Library will be open for advance voting this Saturday. In the sprawling Fraser-Nicola riding, which stretches from Agassiz in the south to Lillooet and Logan Lake in the north, two advance polls will be open on Saturday: one in Logan Lake, and another in Merritt, but there will be no Saturday advance voting in Hope nor Lillooet

In West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, which includes the communities of Pemberton, Squamish and Whistler, the only advance voting opportunity this Saturday will be at the district electoral office.

Most electoral districts with fewer advance voting locations than 2024 are in more populated areas. They include Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Burnaby East, Surrey North, and Abbotsford South.

Some communities will have unusual hosts for their advance polling stations.

In Comox, the old Leeward Liquor Store building will be used for all six days of advanced voting, rather than the Comox Community Centre, where it was held in 2024. The liquor store had moved and rebranded in June, and Elections BC had approached the building’s owner to use the empty building as a polling station.

In Invermere, advance voting will be held at the Invermere Fire Rescue Training Centre. The community centre across the parking lot where advance voting usually takes place is hosting the local election on the Saturday.

Staffing could also be a challenge in some areas. Although Elections BC said they had received more applications than 2024, they were still looking for help in rural and remote communities as of last Friday.

“We are still hiring election officials and office staff up to final voting day” in those areas, an Elections BC spokesperson wrote in an email.

The experience could be good practice for the election agency: in 2030, general voting day for both the provincial and the local election are tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 19.

It is likely the date for the provincial election will change, with a snap election call, the falling of government, or a legislative fix to alter the date. But if it doesn’t, there will be one busy political Saturday four years from now.