No change in standings after 2 of 3 recounts completed in B.C. election

NDP candidate Amna Shah is seen in an undated image from her campaign's Facebook page.

Two of the three recounts in B.C.’s 2024 provincial election have been completed, with no change to the standings in either riding.

The B.C. NDP’s Amna Shah remains in the lead in Surrey City Centre, with 6,618 votes to her B.C. Conservative opponent Zeeshan Wahla’s 6,443 votes, according to results posted Sunday night.

Shah was ahead by just 95 votes in the initial count, but the latest numbers include additional mail-in and assisted telephone ballots, which were tallied over the weekend as part of Elections B.C.’s final count.

With those ballots included, Shah’s lead has increased to 175 votes.

A partial recount in Kelowna Centre was also finished on Sunday, with the latest results showing Conservative candidate Kristina Loewen ahead with 10,948 votes to NDP candidate Loyal Wooldridge’s 10,880 votes.

The third recount, in the Vancouver Island riding of Juan de Fuca-Malahat, is not expect to be completed until Monday.

Mail-in ballots lean NDP

Elections B.C. began the final count on Saturday, with approximately 65,000 additional mail-in ballots, assisted telephone ballots, and absentee ballots to tally across the province’s 93 ridings.

The count of mail-in and assisted telephone ballots was completed Sunday, with the results heavily favouring David Eby’s incumbent NDP, increasing the party’s chances of securing a third term. 

There are still approximately 21,500 absentee ballots that won’t be counted until Monday, including 175 in Surrey City Centre.

There’s also the possibility of mandatory judicial recounts, conducted by a B.C. Supreme Court judge, should any candidate’s lead in the final count be within one-five-hundredth of the total ballots cast in that riding.

The recounts in Surrey City Centre and Juan de Fuca-Malahat were triggered because there were fewer than 100 votes between the leading candidates in both ridings following the initial count.

The NDP’s Dana Lajeunesse was beating Conservative candidate Marina Sapozhnikov in Juan de Fuca-Malahat by just 23 votes following that count, though the mail-in ballots tallied this weekend increased his lead to 106.

Elections B.C. approved the partial recount in Kelowna Centre due to a “transcription error of one vote” that was identified between a ballot account and a tabulator tape, the agency said in a news release this week.

“This discrepancy is likely due to election official error,” the release said. “While the tabulator in question passed all testing and produced results accurately, a recount of the ballots counted by that tabulator will be conducted as a result of the ballot account error.”

Loewen led the NDP’s Loyal Wooldridge by 148 votes in the initial count, but saw her lead shrink to 68 votes in the latest results posted Sunday night. There are 228 absentee ballots pending in that riding.

Last recount results coming Monday

For the last stage of its final vote count, Elections B.C. will be releasing hourly updates on its tally of absentee ballots beginning at 9 a.m. Monday.

Only once that’s finished will the final results be announced – more than a week after election night, which ended with no clear picture of who will form the province’s next government.

As of Sunday evening, party standings remained the same as they did a week ago, with the NDP leading in 46 ridings, the Conservatives 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 remains unchanged, the Greens will hold the balance of power in a minority legislature, with either Eby or Rustad needing support from Green MLAs to become premier.

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Ian Holliday