65,000 BC election ballots to be counted this weekend
By the end of the weekend or early next week, British Columbians should have a clear idea on which party will be in a position to lead the provincial government, but the likelihood of a minority government remains elevated.
In an update today, Elections BC states the final count of the remaining 2024 provincial election ballots will begin on Saturday, October 26 and conclude on Monday, October 28.
A total of about 65,000 ballots will be counted in this three-day final count. This is up from the approximately 49,000 ballots originally estimated by Elections BC on Sunday, October 20, upon the conclusion of the initial count that first began on election night on Saturday, October 19.
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The remaining mail-in ballots will be counted on October 26 and 27, starting with the electoral districts with the closest results between candidates.
The recounts of all ballots in the ridings of Surrey City Centre and Juan de Fuca-Malahat will begin at 1 pm on October 27. This is an automatic recount as both ridings have results that are under a 100-vote difference; currently, as of the conclusion of the initial count last weekend, the BC NDP lead the Conservative Party of BC by 93 votes in Surrey City Centre and just 23 votes in Juan de Fuca-Malahat.
As of the conclusion of the initial count, the BC NDP are leading with 46 seats, closely followed by the BC Conservatives with 45 seats. The BC Green Party has two seats.
A party needs to win at least 47 electoral districts to form a majority government.
With approximately 65,000 votes still to be counted, there is the potential that some ridings with slim margins could swing.
On Friday, October 25, ahead of the final count, Elections BC will provide a precise breakdown of the types of ballots that still need to be counted in each of the 93 electoral districts across the province.
Both party leaders of the BC NDP and the BC Conservatives, David Eby and John Rustad, respectively, have been re-elected in their ridings, but the same cannot be said for BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau, who came 3,687 votes behind the BC NDP candidate in her Vancouver Island riding of Victoria-Beacon Hill.
According to Elections BC’s completed initial count last weekend, a total of 2,037,897 ballots have been cast, providing a preliminary voter turnout rate of 57.4% out of 3,550,017 registered voters, including those who registered while voting.
This includes an all-time record of 1,001,331 ballots cast during the 2024 advance voting period.
The 2024 election saw an all-time record of ballots cast, exceeding the previous record of 1,986,374 in the 2017 election, which had a turnout rate of 57.7%. The 2020 turnout rate was 53.9%.
It remains to be seen how Saturday’s torrential downpours impacted voting turnout, which resulted in localized flooding on some roads.