We’re now months past the BC provincial election that, after a recount, declared NDP a majority. But now the BC Conservative Party is suggesting there were “serious voting irregularities.”
In a press conference on Thursday morning, party leader John Rustad announced that they had filed a complaint with Elections BC and, further, a petition with the courts by one candidate.
Rustad has also called for an independent review of Elections BC and how the election was conducted.
āWe need an independent inquiry to get to the bottom of these election irregularities while the election is still fresh in the memories of those individuals who are said to have cast mail-in ballots and those voters who did not actually live in Surrey-Guildford on election day,ā Rustad said.
Honveer Singh Randhawa, the Surrey-Guildford Conservative candidate, also attended the press conference and shared his concerns with the media. He initiated the court challenge.
“Court challenge brings the possibility for a byelection to come forward,” Randhawa said.
He added that irregularities in mail-in ballots were part of what triggered this challenge, including allegations that people who said they didn’t vote had their votes attributed to them.
A party press release suggests that 45 votes were cast in the Surrey-Guildford riding “that fail even the most basic smell test in a democracy.”
The BC Conservative Party states that 21 mail-in ballot votes were cast by residents of Argyll Lodge, a licensed addiction and substance abuse recovery facility.
“The licensed capacity of Argyll Lodge is 25 beds,” reads the release.
It adds that Argyll Lodge is 80 metres away from the nearest polling station and that some of its residents denied requesting a mail-in ballot or being aware that a provincial election was even happening.
“The manager of Argyll Lodge, listed in Fraser Health inspection report, bears the same name as an individual who made a $1,400 donation to the BC NDP in 2023,” the release states.
Further, the BC Conservative Party says that 22 voters who had cast ballots in Surrey-Guildford didn’t reside there and were not eligible to vote.
āAfter the election, David Eby proposed that an all-party committee of the legislature review the elections process āto support public confidence,’ā said Rustad.
āSince then, Eby has done nothing, and itās clearly too late for that.ā