Two BC ridings within recount range after initial count

Fewer than 100 votes separate the top two candidates in two BC ridings after Elections BC’s initial count, close enough for a candidate to ask for a recount, with every vote-by-mail ballot still to come.

In Burnaby South-Metrotown, BC NDP candidate Paul Choi leads Conservative candidate David Xie by 66 votes, Elections BC’s results showed at 1:49 a.m. PT on Oct 25. In Ladysmith-Oceanside, Conservative candidate Kris McNichol is 89 votes ahead of BC NDP candidate Stephanie Higginson.

Nothing is final until Elections BC’s final count, planned from Nov 6, adds vote-by-mail, assisted telephone and absentee ballots and declares a candidate elected in each riding.

The initial count has the Conservative Party leading in 64 of 93 ridings, the BC NDP in 27 and the BC Green Party in two.

A candidate or official agent can ask in writing for a recount when the preliminary results put the top two within 100 votes. The chief electoral officer or the district electoral officer must then recount some or all of the ballots considered in the initial count, as part of the final count, the Election Act says.

Requests are due Oct 28, Elections BC told political parties in a Sept 23 newsletter.

Three more ridings are within 250 votes. Kelowna Centre is a rematch of a 2024 race settled by 40 votes after a judicial recount, and Conservative candidate Kristina Loewen leads BC NDP candidate Loyal Wooldridge by 132.

In Cowichan Valley, Conservative candidate Bert Chen leads BC NDP candidate Debra Toporowski by 150. In Burnaby East, BC NDP candidate Rohini Reah Arora leads Conservative candidate Peter Si by 241.

In all, 10 ridings are within 500 votes and 18 within 1,000, a BC Ballot count of the results shows.

At 1:49 a.m. PT, 31 ballot boxes in six ridings had yet to report, none of them among the 18. Ridings that could not finish on election night were to keep counting in the morning, Elections BC’s results page said.

After the final count, a judicial recount is automatic in any riding where the top two are separated by less than 1/500 of the ballots considered, including rejected ballots. The district electoral officer must apply to the BC Supreme Court for it, the Act says.

At the initial count’s totals, that line would be 26 votes or fewer in Burnaby South-Metrotown, where 13,144 ballots were considered, and 60 or fewer in Ladysmith-Oceanside, with 30,155, a BC Ballot calculation shows.

Unlike in 2024, every vote-by-mail ballot goes to the final count this year, Elections BC told the parties at an Oct 7 information session. In 2024, its results page said, the initial count included vote-by-mail ballots returned by mail before advance voting ended.

Those ballots, along with assisted telephone and absentee ballots, are counted only after checks that each voter was eligible and voted once, the results page says. Elections BC has not published how many vote-by-mail packages came back.

Elections BC is to start verifying the initial count on Oct 26 and plans the final count for Nov 6 to 10, depending on “absentee vote volumes,” its Oct 7 notes for the parties say.

In 2024, the final count reversed the lead in one of the four ridings within 150 votes after the initial count, Elections BC’s figures show.

In Surrey-Guildford, Conservative candidate Honveer Singh Randhawa led BC NDP candidate Garry Begg by 103 votes after the initial count. Begg came out 27 votes ahead after the final count, inside the riding’s judicial recount line of 38, and finished 22 ahead after the judicial recount.

Kelowna Centre’s 2024 race was also Loewen against Wooldridge. Loewen led by 149 votes after the initial count, saw that shrink to 38 at the final count, inside the riding’s line of 51, and finished 40 ahead after a judicial recount.

In Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre, the other two, the leaders stayed ahead. BC NDP candidate Dana Lajeunesse’s lead grew from 20 votes to 141, and BC NDP candidate Amna Shah’s from 95 to 232.

In 2024, Elections BC estimated on Oct 25 that 66,074 certification envelopes, which hold the ballots counted at the final count, would be considered, 634 of them in Surrey-Guildford and 818 in Kelowna Centre.

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