Who shows up
Vancouver’s civic turnout swings between about 30 and 51 percent depending on how much is at stake: 50% turned out to sweep COPE into office in 2002, 31% for the 2008 race that first elected Vision. By-elections draw a fraction of that.
Notes
Registered voters
BC municipalities use the provincial voters list plus same-day registration, so the denominator includes people who registered at the polls. The City’s own definitions changed slightly over time (UEL voters in or out); the table on this page states which figure is which.
The proxy
Ballots per 100 residents divides the mayoral-race ballot count by census population interpolated between censuses. The franchise widened enormously over this period (property owners only in 1886; women from 1917; tenants; Asian Canadians only from 1949), so the early numbers describe a very different electorate.
Reported figures
Turnout for 1968–1978 is as given in Paul Tennant’s “Vancouver Civic Politics, 1929–1980” (BC Studies, 1980); 1993 from the Wikipedia infobox for that election. They are shown as dots, not connected, because the method may differ.
Compare
Provincial and federal turnout in the same neighbourhoods runs far higher: see the federal ridings page, where Vancouver ridings post 57–66%.