Election overload is real in B.C. ahead of 2 back-to-back votes

Nearly everywhere you look in B.C. are signs of an election. Not just one, but two. I know about the mayor race, but not the provincial one. Well, there are lots of candidates and it's a bit confusing. More confusing, to be honest. Municipal election day is this Saturday. And the snap provincial one is just seven days later. It has voters facing an information overload. There's a significant proportion who tell us, I am confused. I don't know what is going on. There's people knocking on my door. I get flyers. I don't understand why we're having both elections at the same time. There is a range of concerns, from volunteer capacity to voters showing up at the wrong polling station on the wrong day to confusion around candidates on the ballot. That continues to kind of get muddied in the waters of whose responsibility is what and who am I voting for in the municipal election and on what issues versus the provincial election. In cities like Vancouver, candidates run under a local party. Many of them share similar names as provincial or federal parties. For example, the Green Party of Vancouver is unrelated to the BC Green Party. In Saskatchewan in 2020, a similar scenario of coinciding provincial and municipal elections was found to be problematic. A voter survey revealed significant crossover confusion between the issues, the candidates, even the voting locations. locations. There's no reason to think you know like off the bat that it would be good for democracy like that's it's a pretty like I would say it's a pretty frail argument to say like there's going to have like you know there's going to be sort of positive consequences of this. But will voter fatigue lead to voter apathy? Not necessarily. Some BC municipalities have reported record high advanced voting numbers this week leaving some hopeful for strong voter turnout in both elections. Tanya Fletcher, CBC News, Vancouver.