NANAIMO — NanaimoNewsNOW is looking to provide voters a little more clarity amid a crowded field of local candidates this month.
Beginning Thursday, Oct. 1, voters in the City of Nanaimo can use our new, interactive Know Your Vote tool to see how their thoughts and opinions on various topics match with those of the candidates running in the 2026 Municipal Election.
Candidates for Mayor and Council were asked to rate their agreement to 44 statements, chosen by our news team, on a 1-to-5 scale, with one equaling strongly disagree and five representing strongly agree.
Readers can now answer those same questions, with Know Your Vote ranking how closely candidate responses match the reader, so voters can find who actually shares their views rather than guessing on name recognition or sign quantity.
Candidates are ranked according to how well voter’s match their responses in our new Know Your Vote tool. Names and results in this screenshot are fictional to avoid unintentional endorsement. (Image Credit: NanaimoNewsNOW)
To further aid voters in making an informed decision, each candidate also submitted short answer responses to each statement, explaining or justifying their choice.
Our news team will delve deeper into these explanations in the coming weeks.
Topics on the survey range from downtown revitalization and public safety to City operations and environmental protections.
Matches are calculated through a mathematical formula, based on the gap between a candidate’s response and a voter’s, with per-statement scores then calculated as a percentage.
Final rankings are based on those percentages averaged across all 44 questions.
Users can also select topics which specifically matter to them, and see candidates matching their viewpoints on individual issues.
Responses were received from 36 of the 44 candidates by a Sept. 28 deadline.
Voters can take the Know Your Vote survey and find their custom ranking of Mayor and Council candidates by clicking here.
Each candidate’s short answers to all 44-questions are viewable on the results page, further explaining their position on different topics. Names and results in this screenshot are fictional to avoid unintentional endorsement. (Image Credit: NanaimoNewsNOW)
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