British Columbia election recount expected to end Friday

A judicial recount of British Columbia’s provincial election votes is set to conclude today, confirming whether Premier David Eby’s New Democrats will retain their one-seat majority nearly three weeks after the vote.

Most attention will be focused on the nearby Surrey-Guildford race, where the NDP is ahead by just 27 votes, a margin narrow enough to trigger a hand recount of more than 19,000 ballots overseen by a British Columbia Supreme Court judge.

BC Elections spokesman Andrew Watson said the recount is expected to conclude today, but confirmation won’t happen until next week after the appeal period.

The Electoral Act states that the deadline for appealing the results must be lodged with the court within two days of them being announced, but Watson says that due to Remembrance Day on Monday this period will end at 4pm on Tuesday.

If an appeal is filed, it must be heard no later than 10 days after the Registrar receives the notice of appeal.

Another full recount will also take place in Kelowna Centre, where the BC Conservatives narrowly won, while a partial recount will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie to count votes from an uncounted ballot box that contained about 861 votes.

The Prince George-Mackenzie recount will not change the result because the BC Conservative candidate received more than 5,000 votes.

If neither Surrey-Guildford nor Kelowna Center changes hands, the NDP would have 47 seats, the Conservatives 44 and the Greens two seats in the 93-member legislature.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.