By Transition Salt Spring Elections & Candidates, Local News – November 7 2026 on the Salt Spring Exchange. See the original post here.
By a smidge, turnout for the Oct 17 local election on Salt Spring was the highest it’s been in recent elections. That’s a good sign, but the 39.5 percent turnout rate still means that three in five SSI registered voters didn’t vote. To boost turnout in future elections, we need to know more about the electorate. Take the Did You Vote? survey and tell us why you did or didn’t vote.
After the campaign signs have come down but before the newly elected get to work on carrying out their campaign promises is an opportune time to assess the community’s voting patterns. We at Transition Salt Spring want to hear from voters and non-voters alike and find out how informed people were about the candidates and the issues.
As well, we want to know what ideas you have that could boost voter turnout. It shouldn’t be a given that turnout for local elections is always so low.
The results of the survey will help us and others to do a better job of informing, supporting and motivating the community in future non-partisan voter education and get-out-the-vote efforts. After all, an engaged community is a healthy community.
The survey is for anyone who was 18 or older on October 17, and we are aiming to reach a broad cross-section of Salt Springers. Not surprisingly, the first batch of survey respondents has skewed older, so any help in getting it out to younger demographics would be appreciated.
It’s a short survey and should take you less than two minutes to fill out. It’s an anonymous survey, although there is an option to enter your email address to be eligible to win draw prizes.
To incentivize participation in the survey, we are offering $100 gift certificates to Country Grocer, Salt Jar Refillery, and Bohemia Consignment/Axe & Reel.
Take the Did you Vote? survey if you haven’t already:
https://transitionsaltspring.com/election-2026-voter-survey/
Thanks again to everyone who made their voice heard by voting last month. We hope you will be joined by many others the next time around.