B.C. Conservatives want RCMP to investigate alleged voting irregularities

The B.C. Conservatives are ratcheting up claims there were "voting irregularities" in a pivotal riding – demanding an "urgent RCMP investigation" into the party's allegations.

The Surrey-Guildford riding was decided by a razor-thin margin of 22 votes after a judicial recount, giving the B.C. NDP the bare minimum number of seats needed for a majority government.

"We must have public confidence in our election system,” said Steve Kooner, the B.C. Conservatives' critic for the attorney general.

“Surrey-Guildford was the path for the NDP to get to government,” Kooner added.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Kris Clark said anyone with a complaint about a provincial election should report it to Elections B.C.

The B.C. Conservatives' allegations centre on mail-in votes the party says came from Argyll Lodge, an addictions recovery facility in the riding.

Twenty-one residents of the facility voted by mail. The lodge – home to 25 residents – is across the street from a school, where the party says residents could have voted in person.

The B.C. Conservatives have produced sworn statements from residents, denying they requested mail-in ballots and suggesting they were pressured to vote.

“We don’t send a mail-in package in the case of an election to anyone who does not request a mail-in package,” said B.C.’s chief electoral officer, Anton Boegman last week.

The agency did, however, acknowledge requests could be facilitated by staff after canvassing residents

Kooner says his party wants to know how the ballots got to the lodge and who requested them, pointing to what he describes as inconsistencies between what the lodge’s manager says, what some of its residents say, and Elections B.C.'s policy

The facility's manager, Baljit Kandola, denies any wrongdoing. She says she wasn’t involved directly in the process but also that the facility never contacted Elections BC.

Kandola told CTV News Monday that the facility and its staff are the “victim of a politically dirty game.”

The B.C. Conservatives say the situation at the lodge doesn't pass the smell test.

Now, Kooner is calling on the RCMP to get involved to probe potential violations of the province's Elections Act.

“We cannot allow our election system to go into disrepute,” he said.

Its candidate in the riding, Honveer Singh Randhawa, filed a complaint with Elections B.C. earlier this month seeking to get the riding's results deemed invalid.

A spokesperson for Elections B.C. said while has referred investigations to the RCMP in the past, it has not done so in relation to the Conservatives' concerns about Surrey-Guildford.

With files from The Canadian Press