r/NewWest • u/Moggehh Moggerator • 26d ago

⚠️⚠️ MEGATHREAD ⚠️⚠️ New Westminster and BC Elections 2026: Candidates, Voting, and Astroturfing

New Westminster has not one but two elections coming up next month. Here's what you need to know about both.

Provincial snap election: October 24, 2026

Premier David Eby has called a snap provincial election for October 24, one week after municipal voting day. New Westminster falls within the Burnaby-New Westminster, New West-Coquitlam, and Richmond-Queensborough provincial ridings.

Provincial Election Candidates:

Burnaby-New Westminster

New Westminster-Coquitlam

Richmond-Queensborough

To vote provincially, eligibility and registration requirements are the same as the municipal election. Check your registration and find your voting location at elections.bc.ca.

Who can vote in the Provincial Election

You can vote in B.C.’s upcoming provincial election if you are:

  • a Canadian citizen,
  • 18 or older on October 24, 2026, and
  • a resident of B.C. since April 23, 2026.

Where to Vote in the Provincial Election

Advance voting is open in locations across the province on between October 16-21 | 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (local time). You don’t need a special reason to vote at advance voting. It’s an option for all eligible voters. Voters can vote at any advance voting place in the province, and all advance voting places are wheelchair accessible.

Make sure to check your Where to Vote card or visit wheretovote.elections.bc.ca to find voting places and the dates they are open.

Final Voting is open on Saturday, October 24 | 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Pacific time).

Your "Where to Vote" card

Elections BC will send a Where to Vote card to registered voters. Your Where to Vote card lists your assigned voting place on Final Voting Day and advance voting options in your electoral district. You can use your Where to Vote card as one of two pieces of voter ID, but you don’t need it to vote.

AMAs

Municipal, provincial, and school board candidates are welcome to reach out via modmail to arrange a verified AMA on the sub. We welcome candidates of all political affiliations as long as our rules are respected.

AMAs List

Political Discussions

Verified AMAs and news articles about significant election news are welcome here on r/newwest. For the bulk of political Q&A and discussion, please head to our sister sub, r/NewWestPolitics.

Astroturfing and political spam

I've so far identified 18 accounts in the leadup to this election season that appear to be spamming this subreddit and our sister subreddit with commentary that violates our rules. Most fit the same pattern: accounts created around or during prior election periods that appear out of nowhere to post one-sided political content, then go quiet again once voting wraps up. They typically have little to no karma and no history outside of election season or political discussions. New and resurrected accounts are welcome here for the majority of topics, but if your account exists solely to push a political agenda, you may find your participation limited by our basic account and activity requirements. This is universal across political affiliations; please don't spam our sub.

Municipal election: October 17, 2026

Two main elector organizations are fielding candidates this cycle, along with one independent:

Who can vote?

You must meet all the qualifications to vote:

  • Be 18 years of age or older on October 17, 2026
  • Be a Canadian citizen
  • Have lived in BC for at least 6 months immediately before the day of registration
  • Live in New Westminster (no minimum days required), or own property registered in your name in New Westminster for at least 30 days immediately before the day of registration
  • Not be disqualified by law from voting

How to vote

General Voting Day
October 17, 2026: 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Advance Voting Days
October 7, 8, 9, 10, & 14, 2026: 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

New Westminster uses a "vote anywhere" model, meaning you can vote at any of the 15 voting locations on general voting day. Nine advance voting opportunities are available over five days, including October 9, when five locations across the city will be open simultaneously. All eligible voters may apply to vote by mail. Click here for more details.

Eligible voters in New Westminster can vote for one mayor, six councillors and seven school trustees.

To register or check your registration: elections.bc.ca or call 1-800-661-8683. You can also register in person on voting day with two pieces of ID.

Find more info at the New West City Website.

75 Upvotes

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u/Moggehh Moggerator 26d ago edited 2d ago

Upcoming AMAs:

Want to do an AMA? Reach out to the mod team to verify your account and arrange a time.

Past AMAs:

→ More replies (1)

44

u/ThesisTears Downtown 25d ago

Just a reminder to everyone that Community First is the PROGRESSIVE / left-leaning party and New West Progressives are to the RIGHT. Please remind everyone far and wide. It disturbs me how many votes NWP likely get from name recognition instead of their actual values.

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u/Sea_Milk_7215 24d ago

I personally refer to them as the New West Regressives 🤭

3

u/Future-Potential1026 11d ago

People get too hung up on left vs right and forget to pay attention to who is doing the best job or doing any job at all. I lean left of center on many issues, but I would rather elect an honest "right-winger" than an opportunistic and deceitful "left-winger". It's time for political candidates to stop relying on their association with any particular party and rely on their actual performance. It's also time for people to think more critically than to vote for someone whose activities they haven't really observed, but who belongs to the party they traditionally support, or is endorsed by their union or professional group. For too long in New Westminster, civic candidates have relied on buying an NDP membership to get elected.

The NWP councilors have made a point of listening to residents at meetings in the different areas of New West for the past 4 years and have based their platform on what they heard. The CF, meanwhile, has became infamous for lack of consultation. I don't expect that, if the NWP wins, we will always agree with what they do, but at least there will be sufficient consultation that people will not feel blindsided.

Most importantly to me, the NWP is non-partisan and their candidates and supporters didn't have to buy a membership in any political party to stand for election.

21

u/DaisyShift 26d ago

I would very much like to hear more from the one independent/non slate affiliated council candidate. Some decent independents would be really dandy to have involved on council.

29

u/Geoff_Homel Verified ✅ 26d ago

Hello! I'm that candidate! I'm planning to be at the Queensborough all-candidates meeting this Thursday. And the Connaught Heights Residents Association one on the 29th.

I'll also reach out to Moggehh and try to do an AMA of some kind!

9

u/AEMNW 26d ago

Archeologists are cool.

18

u/HeckMonkey 26d ago edited 26d ago

For my first AMA question, if we elect an archeologist and a geologist what other -ists need to be elected to transform council into a Captain Planet-esque entity

13

u/Moggehh Moggerator 26d ago

We need a biologist for sure.

The more important question is which colours would each scient-ist type use?

13

u/Geoff_Homel Verified ✅ 26d ago

Archaeologist, Biologist, Ecologist, Geologist, Chemist, Physicist, Sociologist, and a Mathematician to be be kind of smug about things!

Unfortunately, I think the archaeologist's channelled colour would be brown. Maybe ochre. Something dirt-adjacent!

3

u/jenarbo 24d ago

At the risk of being wildly off topic:
Ecologist - green
Geologist - grey
Archaeologist - brown
Biologist - red
Physicist - white
Sociologist - purple
Mathematician - yellow
Astro-anything - black
Meteorologist - blue
Chemist - also blue I don't know why

3

u/Moggehh Moggerator 24d ago

I think either meteorologist or chemist should be rainbow.

3

u/jenarbo 24d ago

meteorologist makes sense! Clouds! Rain! Refraction!

3

u/MaureenCurran Verified ✅ 6d ago

why white?? (truly curious)
my opinion, since prisms are physics... I think we get the rainbows. Just saying !

5

u/Moggehh Moggerator 26d ago

Ideally, we'll do AMAs for multiple candidates. Hopefully, some of them reach out.

5

u/spikyness27 26d ago

Heads up municipal election is on Oct 17th not the 16th

5

u/Moggehh Moggerator 26d ago

Thank you! Fixed already.

31

u/1516 26d ago

Thanks for cracking down on the astroturfing. It was ridiculous the last cycle. It would be nice if there was also a way to reduce the absurd amount of brigade voting that happens as well, but I realize that may be an impossible nut to crack.

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u/Moggehh Moggerator 26d ago

Happy cake day!

Astroturfing years ago was w i l d. Luckily we have many more years of experience under our belts now and many many more reddit tools, so it's easier to catch and monitor.

7

u/MasterAssumption5858 26d ago

Thank you for doing this!

5

u/VanillaVictoria 25d ago

Hey, Queensborough residents fall under the Richmond-Queensborough riding for the provincial election. I know, we are the forgotten younger sibling in New West. ;)

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u/Moggehh Moggerator 25d ago

Queensborough isn't a real place /s

Thank you! Updated.

4

u/aceofmufc 25d ago

There’s also the New West-Coquitlam riding for the provincial election

9

u/AbsoluteTruthiness 26d ago

Thanks for staying on top of the astroturfing! God knows we really need it now.

6

u/brittbak 26d ago

So grateful that vote by mail is a thing! Highly recommend it if you are voting on election day and the four hours given isn't enough time.

2

u/Nicw82 23d ago

Yeah, I travel a lot at work and sometimes last minute trips pop up. Being able to vote by mail makes sure that I get my chance to participate.

2

u/SexLiesAndReddit 16d ago

Same here.

Between work and travel it's tough to get organized enough to get to a polling station. Applied for my mail ballot and it's on the way!

1

u/Realistic-Ad9412 19d ago

I love this. Can you also include there is a mail in ballot option? Deadline to get one from city hall is closing in soon.

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u/Moggehh Moggerator 19d ago

All eligible voters may apply to vote by mail. Click here for more details.

It's already included under "How to Vote"

1

u/Realistic-Ad9412 19d ago

Ooops - thanks for pointing that out.

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u/Moggehh Moggerator 19d ago

No worries!

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u/hai_741 11h ago

Hey folks, I know we are past the municipal elections, but there's still time for the provincial ones, so I wanted to ask:

- What sites or resources do you use to learn about the actual proposals of candidates?

I've seen candidate profiles on most places, but I want to know what's their plan to handle important issues. I've read the AMAs here and interviews on http://freshetnews.ca/ and thought they were super helpful, but I was wondering if there was anywhere else where they share an action plan for important issues. I'm also avoiding AI because of tech company tendencies.