Er... Where Do I Live?

So it occurred to us that there are 13 municipalities and something to the tune of a million candidates running in the Capital Region. This makes it prety hard to figure out who to vote for if you're coming at it for the first time. To help you along, here are:

A map of all the municipalities in the CRD so you can figure out where you live...

...and for those of you living in Victoria, a map of the city's neighbourhoods so you can get a sense of where your closest polling station might be.

Finally, if you check out the How To Vote page on this website, you'll find a map for each polling station in Victoria.

That's all for now. If you'd like us to look into something before the election, drop us a line and let us know!

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Candidate Surveys Announced

So we've just sent out our candidate survey to everyone who has announced that they're running for the City of Victoria as either Mayor or Council. Answers will be posted as they arrive.

Our questions were:

Q: Why are you running and why should I vote for you?

Q: What issue is most important to you and why?

Q: What's something people don't know about you?

VV

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Gearing Up

So things are picking up. Articles are being written, campaigns are being announced (to recap: Paul Brown and Dean Fortin for Mayor, Lisa Helps for City Council), and... actually, that's about it. Let's fix that.

Just like last year Victoria Votes will be interviewing any and all candidates for Council, Mayor, or CRD representative in the Municipality of Victoria. In the interest of fairness, we will be asking each candidate the same three questions - in order to keep these questions relevant to you, we'd like to get to know you a little better.

So send us an email or comment on this post and let us know what we should find out about this year's candidates.

VV

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What's on this site?

First of all, we just created an events page. Leading up to the election, there are going to be seemingly countless public discussions, all candidates meetings, and forums - we're going to try to keep track of these and post them on the events page as they pop up, so keep checking in.

All candidates meetings are an awesome way to meet the people who want to help run this city, size them up, ask some questions, and get some of your own thoughts out there into the universe. The formats range from formal panel discussions where you'll be part of an audience, listen to a question-and-answer session, and mill around chatting afterward, to the much more interesting "toss everyone into a big room and see what happens" format, where you get to wander around and chat with candidates in a more informal context.

Because this election also comes with a referendum, there will be a few meetings centred around the borrowing bylaw and the Johnson Street Bridge. These are sure to be interesting, and will give you a chance to learn about this issue if you're not really up to date on what's going on.

There's also now a handy links page, which has candidate websites, sites related to the referendum, and anything else relevant that we come across.

The How to Vote section sort of speaks for itself.

V V

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Hey look, news!

This article appeared in Monday Magazine's "The Week" today, written by Danielle Pope.

Blog your city fears away

In the name of voter participation, one community member is doing his part to generate interest around the city’s council by-election.

Simon Nattrass, who ran for city council in 2008 at age 19, has traded in his election hat for one focused on raising public awareness around municipal politics and getting people the information they need. Nattrass has started a new blog focused on any and all media surrounding the upcoming by-election. The site, found at victoriavotes.ca, is a mission in fostering the informed vote.

“We ask, ‘Why don’t people vote?’ but when you think about it, it’s all to do with access to information—and clear access at that,” says Nattrass.

While Nattrass garnered most of the site’s information from media outlets, political bloggers and the City of Victoria’s website, he said he found it often frustrating to navigate through a half hour’s worth of pages to reach the info he was looking for.

Natrass plans on housing all the city councillor information he can find on the blog, as well as host private interviews with the candidates to answer some burning questions not yet treated by the media. The blog also lists when and where to vote, as well as information about advance polls and polling stations.

“I’m already involved [in politics] and committed, but for people who aren’t, there’s no way they want to spend that kind of time looking for information,” he says. “Elections could be a much greater catalyst for community engagement than they currently are.”

At least someone is paying attention.

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What's up with this blog?

Elections are confusing. Everybody's trying to get your attention, there are all candidates meetings, politicians, and interest groups who are all hoping to sway your opinion in one direction or another. Even so, we all know elections are an important part of life in our country, and we all feel that quiet but ever-present urge to participate in political life at least every now and then.

Victoria Votes is here to make your election experience easier. Over the next few weeks we will be collecting media, interviewing candidates, and looking into some of the issues related to this election. All of this information will be available through the blog here at victoriavotes.ca, so check back for regular updates!

If you have any information you think might be relevant to this blog, let us know! Click the letter icon in the top right corner of this page to email us at vote.victoria.bc@gmail.com.

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