B.C. election results: Mail-in ballots favouring NDP as recounts begin in 2 ridings

Recounts began Sunday afternoon in two ridings where candidates were separated by fewer than 100 votes following the initial count in the B.C. election.

The recounts for Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre got underway at 1 p.m., while the final count of mail-in and absentee ballots continues in an election where no party secured a majority on voting day.

After the initial count, the NDP’s lead in Juan de Fuca Malahat was just 23 votes. However, Saturday’s count of mail-in ballots for the riding show that Dana Lajeunesse extended his lead over Conservative candidate Marina Sapozhnikov to 106 votes.

In Surrey City Centre, it was a similar story for NDP candidate Amna Shah, who extended her lead over the Conservatives' Zeeshan Wahla from 95 votes to 178 votes.

The final count will continue Sunday, and will be completed Monday. So far, the tallying of mail-in and absentee ballots has not changed the leader in any electoral district.

The closest race in the province, as of Elections BC's 4 p.m. update on Saturday was in Surrey-Guildford, where Conservative candidate Honveer Singh Randhawa led NDP incumbent Garry Begg by just 12 votes.

In the initial count after election night, Randhawa's lead was 103 votes.

Three other races were within one percentage point on Saturday afternoon. Those were Courtenay-Comox, Kelowna Centre and Maple Ridge East.

All three were led by Conservatives on election night, and all three have seen the leads narrow on Saturday.

In Courtenay-Comox, Conservative Brennan Day leads NDP incumbent Ronna-Rae Leonard by 116 votes, roughly half the 234 he led by on election night.

In Kelowna Centre, Conservative Kristina Loewen leads the NDP's Loyal Wooldridge by 72 votes. Her election night lead was 148.

And in Maple Ridge East, where Conservative Lawrence Mok led NDP incumbent Bob D'Eith by 327 votes in the initial count, Mok's lead decreased to 163 votes on Saturday.

Notably, hundreds of ballots remain to be counted in each of these close ridings.

Elections BC said it would count mail-in ballots in the closest ridings first, and the agency's records indicate the mail-ballot count is complete in all five ridings mentioned. However, hundreds of absentee ballots, which are slated to be counted on Monday, remain outstanding in each district.

The final count of ballots began Saturday, with more than 66,000 mail-in and absentee votes potentially yet to be counted across the province's 93 electoral districts. Counting is expected to continue through the weekend and into Monday.

The addition of these 66,000-plus votes has the potential to change the results of the nail-bitingly close election, which saw the initial count conclude last weekend with the B.C. NDP leading in 46 ridings, the B.C. Conservative Party leading in 45 and the B.C. Greens leading in two.

Forty-seven seats are required for a majority, so a gain of one seat for the NDP or two seats for the Conservatives in the final count could give that party the ability to form a government without help from another party's MLAs.

If the riding tally ends up unchanged, the Greens will hold the balance of power in a minority legislature, with either NDP Leader David Eby or Conservative Leader John Rustad needing support from Green MLAs to become premier.

Data released by Elections BC Friday afternoon shows a total of 66,074 "certification envelopes" accepted for the final count.

The counting process will involve opening the envelopes and separating the ballots inside from the envelopes themselves and from their security sleeves.

Any envelopes that contain no ballot or multiple ballots will be set aside and not counted, Elections BC said.

Elections BC said earlier this week that it plans to share partial results from its final count at 1 p.m. and again at 4 p.m. on Saturday, and again at those times on Sunday.

CTV News will be updating this article with the latest results as they come in over the weekend.