BC election results: Final count begins Saturday

The final counting of ballots for the 2024 BC elections begins Saturday. Across the province’s 93 electoral districts, more than 66,000 absentee and postal votes have potentially yet to be counted.

Elections BC says even more may be added to the total number of ballots remaining as some precincts have certificate envelopes that are still verifying that the ballots inside are valid.

The addition of those more than 66,000 votes could potentially change the results of the extremely close election that ended last weekend, with the BC NDP leading in 46 ridings, the BC Conservative Party in 45 and the BC Greens leading in two.

Five districts completed the preliminary count, with the top two candidates separated by one percentage point.

The closest race was in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, where NDP candidate Dana Lajeunesse led Conservative candidate Marina Sapozhnikov by just 23 votes according to initial counts.

Elections BC data released Friday shows at least 681 mail-in and absentee ballots remain to be counted in that district, which is also subject to a mandatory recount because the top two candidates were separated by less than 100 votes on election night.

The Surrey City Center district is also subject to a mandatory recount, where preliminary estimates showed NDP candidate Amna Shah led by 93 votes over Conservative Party’s Zeeshan Wahla.

According to Elections BC, at least 476 ballots will be counted during the final count at Surrey City Center.

The three remaining districts in which the lead candidate’s lead is less than one percent of the votes cast in the district are:

• 
  Courtenay-Comox: Conservative Brennan Day leads NDP incumbent Ronnie-Rae Leonard by 234 votes; at least 995 votes remain to be counted
• 
  Kelowna Center: Conservative Kristina Loewen leads Democratic Party loyalist Wooldridge by 148 votes; at least 818 votes remain to be counted
• 
  Surrey-Guildford: Conservative Honveer Singh Randhawa leads NDP incumbent Garry Begg by 103 votes; at least 634 votes remain to be counted

Forty-seven seats are needed to obtain a majority, so winning one seat for the NDP or two seats for the Conservatives in the final tally could give that party the opportunity to form a government without the help of another party’s MLA.

If the overall balance remains unchanged, the Greens will hold the balance of power in the minority legislature, and NDP Leader David Eby or Conservative Leader John Rustad will need the support of a Green MLA to become prime minister.

Data released by Elections BC As of Friday afternoon, a total of 66,074 “certificate envelopes” had been accepted for the final count.

The counting will involve opening the envelopes and separating the ballots from the envelopes themselves and their protective sleeves.

Any envelopes that do not contain ballots or contain multiple ballots will be set aside and will not be counted, according to Elections BC.

Earlier this week, Elections BC said it planned to release partial results of the final vote count at 1 p.m. and again at 4 p.m. on Saturday, and again at those times on Sunday.

CTV News will update this story with the latest results as they appear over the weekend.