Maloney, Orr leading Vancouver byelection with half of votes counted

With just more than half of ballots counted, candidates Lucy Maloney and Sean Orr are leading Vancouver's two-seat city council byelection — positioning the progressive candidates to win both seats and weaken the ABC Vancouver majority on council.

As of 11:30 p.m., unofficial results show COPE's Sean Orr leading with more than 20,000 votes, followed closely by OneCity's Lucy Maloney with 19,353 votes. There have been 37,525 ballots have been counted so far.

If they win, both seats will go to parties on the centre-left and left, dealing a political blow to ABC Vancouver, which had hoped to strengthen its hold on council with candidates Jaime Stein and Ralph Kaisers.

There are 13 candidates competing to fill the two vacancies left by former OneCity councillor Christine Boyle, now an MLA, and former Green councillor Adriane Carr, who retired in January.

Maloney campaigned to restore the city's renter advocacy office to strengthen the tenant protections and push for the mental health nurses ABC promised during the 2022 campaign.

Orr campaigned against what he calls the "disproportionate political power of the rich" in Vancouver, and for protecting tenants from demovictions, or demolition driven evictions, and exploitation while also combating homelessness.

Mayor Ken Sim addressed supporters earlier in the evening, saying: "While the results tonight didn't go the way that we hoped for… we look forward to working with the two elected officials."

ABC candidate Stein said he was proud of the campaign and thanked voters for their support.

"We weren't negative. We didn't punch down.... I'm incredibly proud of the campaign we ran."

Ballot counting was delayed Saturday evening after long lines persisted past the official 8 p.m. close of polls.

According to the city, results could not be released until all eligible voters in line had cast their ballots.

Official election results will be declared on April 9.