Q&A: Surrey Chief Election Officer on more advance voting sites, 100 names on ballot

Q&A: Surrey Chief Election Officer on more advance voting sites, 100 names on ballot

Published 4:00 pm Friday, September 18, 2026

We recently caught up with Gib van Ert, Surrey Chief Election Officer, to talk about his job during the 2022 and 2026 civic election campaigns, and how Surrey plans to encourage more residents to vote for mayor, council and school trustees this fall. Van Ert is a lawyer and partner at Olthuis van Ert, based in Vancouver and Ottawa.

What is your role during the current civic election?

“Under the local government act, a chief election officer is responsible for conducting the election for every local government, so in this case, the City of Surrey. I have a great big team at the city that handles everything, but at the top end, you know, there are inevitably particular decisions to be made around strategy and conduct and so on. I rely on the excellent people I’ve got around me for a lot, but then for certain things it’s my job, certain decisions made under the statute and so on.”

You declared 100 mayor, council and school trustees for the election on Friday, Sept. 11. Is that a record number for Surrey?

“I don’t know for sure if it’s a record number, but it’s more candidates total than last election (in 2022) and also more than 2018. We’ve gone from 84 candidates to 100, including 67 for city councillor, which is the big jump. It’s a big election this year. It was a big one last time, and it’s a big one this time.”

What does it mean that so many candidates are wanting to get elected?

“I don’t know. I’m not sure that you can readily draw conclusions about that. I think we know from 2022, and we know from earlier elections, Surrey is a place with a lot of voter activity, a lot of public issues, a lot of debate. It’s a pretty thriving democracy. I think that’s probably what we can conclude from it.”

What’s new this election? Are there any new rules in place, initiatives that encourage more people to vote, easier access, things like that?

“The big thing is that we have increased the advance voting. There are four advance voting days (Oct. 7, 10, 14, and 15), which is the same number as in 2022, but we have 10 advance voting locations this time, with six last time around. That’s a 67 per cent increase. What it means is that advance voting, voting ahead of the general voting day (of Oct. 17), is going to be even easier than last time round, at 10 locations spread across Surrey. This is in response to increasing voter demand for advance voting.”

How popular was advance voting in 2022?

“Last time round, turnout in the advance polling was over 30 per cent of electors, so that’s pretty remarkable. In 2022 it was about 35,000 electors voting in advance, and the total number for the election was around 123,000. So close to 30 per cent voted ahead of time and 70 per cent voted on general election day. With the increase in advanced voting locations, maybe we’ll see more advanced voting. That is sort of what we’re anticipating, and we’ll see how it goes. We know it’s a popular option.”

Does your office deal with election sign issues or anything like that?

“We deal with some that. There’s a division of labour between Elections BC and local governments for certain things. If candidates put election signs too close to polling stations, for example, we deal with that. Content of the signs, that’s an Elections BC thing.… Election signs are allowed on private property, but what we can’t allow is signage on city properties including parks, for instance, or community centres. Those are cases the city would enforce.”

Once polls close on Oct. 17, how quickly will we know election results?

“The results come in quite quickly. We use voting machines, and that speeds things up quite a bit. Polls close at 8 p.m. We don’t actually end the voting until everyone who’s still queuing at 8 p.m. gets in and gets a chance to vote, so it can be a little later than 8 p.m. in practice, depending on how busy a particular voting place is. But once we’ve closed the poll and we can start tabulating, they can come in pretty quickly. Last time we started getting preliminary results by around 9:30 p.m., and not much longer than that for every voting location. The results are all posted on the city’s website.”

How do people know if they can vote or not?

“If you’re already registered, just bring your voting card and a piece of ID. A long list of acceptable ID is posted on the surrey.ca website. If you aren’t registered, you can register the day of. In that case, you need to bring two pieces of ID to ensure that you’re qualified, meaning you’re a Canadian citizen and you live in Surrey and you’re over age 18.”