Kevin Acton (stock photo courtesy of the Village of Lumby)

By Liam Verster

Centre-Right Candidate Option

Independent candidate does not believe he was a spoiler in the Vernon-Lumby riding

Oct 30, 2024 | 11:53 AM

Kevin Acton is pushing back against claims he was a spoiler in the local riding during this past provincial election.

Acton was the candidate in Vernon-Lumby for B.C. United, formerly knows as the B.C. Liberals, until the party folded before the election.

He was not selected to be the representative for the Conservative Party of B.C. in Vernon-Lumby, so he ran as an unaffiliated candidate.

During the election, Acton, who is also the Mayor of Lumby, received 4,266 votes, or just over 15 per cent of the vote, finishing third overall behind the B.C. NDP’s Harwinder Sandhu (11,836 votes) and Conservative Dennis Giesbrecht (11,359).

Since the election there have been complaints surfacing on social media that Acton “spoiled the ballot,” a notion he denies.

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“I personally don’t believe in vote splits,” Acton told Vernon Matters.

“If somebody’s running for government and they have their views and you try to educate people on what those are, then whoever votes for you, that’s who they should be voting for.”

“I kind of liken it to if I was running for the mayor and there were three of us, do we say that the one [candidate] is splitting the votes off the other two? Or is there three people running for the position of Mayor?”

“So I find that vote split narrative really challenging. If people really wanted to vote for NDP then they would have, if they really wanted to vote for the Conservatives they would have.”

He added that, during the campaign, he heard from people who were happy to have a centre-right option, adding it’s unknown what party those people would have supported if he wasn’t running, or even if they would vote at all.

Acton went on to say he was a little disappointed in the results of an NDP majority government, saying he had hoped to see a minority government and himself elected as an Independent MLA.

“They would have [needed me] for a vote, so it would have given our community a lot of flex when it came to passing policy and legislation,” Acton explained.

“Kind of the same situation the Greens were in [a few days ago during the vote count], the NDP were going to need them to make any decisions which means the Green party would have had a lot of power and control in the legislation, and it would have been the same for any of the Independents that might have made it in as well.”

There were no Independent or Unaffiliated MLAs elected during the 2024 provincial general election.

This was Acton’s first foray into provincial politics and, despite losing, he said he enjoyed the process.

“It was a lot of fun. The people were really engaging. When I campaigned as a mayor I had a couple people helping, but I had a group of 20 or 30 people that all sort of felt the same as I did and were all on board [during the provincial election campaign],” Acton told Vernon Matters.

“We had door knocking, events, coffees and lunches, and we even did the old fashion sign shaking on the side of the road a couple times and we’d all go for breakfast after.

“It was a really, really good experience and people were genuinely nice. I mean, not always, when we were shaking the signs the odd person would give us the finger or a thumbs down, but it was just a really good experience.”

Acton added he would consider pursuing provincial politics again in the future “if all the stars align and it doesn’t seem like something I have to chase and it seems like the right thing to do,” but added it would not be something he will seek out without good reason.