Burnaby, 2026.Against the wave.
In 2026 voters across Metro Vancouver threw out incumbents, and seven cities changed mayors, Vancouver and Surrey among them. Burnaby re-elected its governing party, the Burnaby Citizens Association, with seven of eight council seats and every school board seat. Here's how we found those votes.
A change year, and a party asking for more of the same.
Burnaby has no wards. Every voter picks a mayor, eight councillors and seven school trustees, all elected citywide. That makes the last seat razor-thin. It was decided by 215 votes in 2018 and by 380 in 2022.
BCA has held Burnaby's council since 1987, and three of its long-serving councillors weren't running again. Around it, voters were throwing out incumbents. Holding on meant finding our own supporters, in the right places, and getting them out.
The hard part is that Burnaby doesn't publish turnout by neighbourhood, and its 2022 results stop at the city line. So we gathered the provincial and federal results, which are counted poll by poll, and overlaid Burnaby's past city results on them. That showed where the campaign's voters lived.
Four questions, answered every day.
Our campaign platform began as a tool for BC's provincial ridings. For Burnaby we rebuilt it around one city, so the campaign could answer four questions every morning.
- /01
Where are our voters?
Three Burnaby elections, plus provincial and federal results, on one city map, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. For the first time, the campaign could see where BCA support actually lived.
- /02
How many do we need?
We set the goal in votes, not percentages: what it takes to win the last seat, at both a low turnout and a high one. Burnaby's turnout has swung that much between elections.
- /03
Where do the volunteers go?
Every neighbourhood was ranked by how many likely supporters we hadn't met yet, and re-ranked after every canvass. Volunteers went where the gap was biggest, not where the doors were easiest.
- /04
Who hasn't voted yet?
From the first advance poll to election night, we checked the City's list of who had voted, hour by hour. Supporters who'd voted came off the lists. Everyone else got a knock, a call or a door hanger.
74% of the supporters on our final list voted. The city turned out at 29%.
Of the 3,979 supporters on the final get-out-the-vote list, 2,946 cast a ballot, which is 74%. Citywide turnout was just over 29%, from a record 50,326 ballots, up from 32,251 in 2022.
At the advance polls, the last council seat was won by 38 votes. On election day it was won by 1,073. That's the day we worked the list hardest, checking it against the City's voted list every hour.
We don't take credit for the whole gap, since people who tell a canvasser they support you vote more than average anyway. But the seat BCA lost by 380 in 2022 came back by 1,180.
- City of Burnaby, final official count, October 2026: Declaration of Official Results (candidates elected), report to Council and detailed tabulator returns (votes by candidate, voting method and voting place; ballots cast). Mapped in our Burnaby Council results report.
- City of Burnaby certified results, 2018 and 2022, and the 2022 Chief Election Officer report (turnout 1987–2022).
- Our canvass and get-out-the-vote counts, final snapshot October 18, 2026. Counts only.
What are you trying to win?
Tell us what you're up against, when it's decided and what you need to accomplish.