It will be another week before residents of the Juan de Fuca-Malahat riding know who will represent them in the provincial legislature.
Elections B.C. confirmed Sunday that both Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre will be the subject of official recounts.
The recounts were triggered when the initial vote count Saturday night showed the top two candidates in each riding were separated by fewer than 100 votes.
In Juan de Fuca-Malahat, NDP candidate Dana Lajeunesse holds a lead of just 23 votes over the Conservatives’ Marina Sapozhnikov — 8,943 for Lajeunesse to 8,920 for Sapozhnikov.
In Surrey City Centre, the NDP’s Amna Shah has a 96-vote lead over the Conservatives’ Zeeshan Wahla — 6,439 for Shah to 6,343 for Wahla.
Elections B.C. said the recounts will take place between Oct. 26 and 28, with votes counted by hand.
There may also be a judicial recount, conducted by the B.C. Supreme Court, if the difference between the first two candidates is less than 1/500 of the total ballots counted in a riding. That number in Juan de Fuca-Malahat would be 47 votes.
In that case, the district electoral officer must make the application for a judicial recount within six days after the declaration of official results.
Other candidates or their official agents have until Oct. 22 to request district electoral officer recounts based on concerns about procedural issues or how votes were counted.
Preliminary results in the election have the New Democrats leading in 46 ridings, the Conservatives in 45, and the Greens in two. For a majority, a party needs 47 seats.
The NDP received 908,944 votes, or 44.60 per cent of the total, to the Conservative Party’s 887,909 (43.57 per cent). The Green Party received 166,863 votes, for 8.19 per cent.
In a statement Sunday afternoon, NDP Leader David Eby said he heard the message sent by voters in the election, which saw the party fail to capture a majority government.
“We have not done enough and we must do better,” he said. “Working to fix the tough challenges people are facing is what drives me — it’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. I’m committed to working with the legislature you elected to deliver for you.”
Eby said despite the “oppositional” nature of elections, all British Columbians care about lowering the cost of living, building affordable homes, ensuring health care is available when needed, and ensuring communities are safe.
“After a close and hard fought campaign, you, British Columbians have asked us to come together and work to make life better. I am determined to listen and get down to work for you,” he said.
Candidates cannot be officially declared elected until the final count of votes is complete. That process is to begin Wednesday, four days after the final voting day, and wrap on Oct. 28.
The final count includes further quality assurance checks are conducted on the results reported at initial count. Ballots considered at final count are screened before being counted to ensure that the voter was eligible and that they only voted once.
The final count includes absentee and mail-in ballots that cannot be counted at initial count.
Elections B.C. estimates there are about 49,000 additional ballots to be considered during final count.
More people voted in this provincial election than ever before, with a record 2,037,897 ballots cast. The previous record was 1,986,374 votes cast in 2017.
Voter turnout was 57.41 per cent, up from the last B.C. election in 2020, when 53.86 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot.
This election featured the quickest release of results.
Results from voting places with electronic tabulators reported their first set of numbers within 15 minutes, and over half of the results were available in the first half hour after polls closed at 8 p.m.
There were non-technology voting places throughout the province, and results from manual counts were not reported until later in the evening. Extensive out-of-district results from B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also took more time to report.
By 9 p.m., 85 per cent of preliminary results had been reported. By comparison, only 13.5 per cent of preliminary results had been reported an hour after the polls closed under the manual counting processes in the 2017 B.C. election.
