Elections BC released partial results of the final count in B.C.’s 2024 provincial election Saturday afternoon, and the data shows NDP candidates gaining in some tight races.
NDP candidates have extended their leads in close contests in Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre, while narrowing the gap with leading Conservative candidates in several other ridings.
So far, though, 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, 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.
The two closest races on election night were led by the NDP candidates, and each candidate extended their lead in Saturday’s updates.
Dana Lajeunesse extended his lead over Conservative candidate Marina Sapozhnikov in Juan de Fuca-Malahat from just 23 votes on election night to 106 votes on Saturday.
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.
There will be recounts in both ridings – which tally ballots cast at polling stations, both in advance and on voting day – because the gap between the two leading candidates was less than 100 votes in the initial count. The recounts begin Sunday, with results from Surrey City Centre expected the same day, and the results from Juan de Fuca-Malahat expected on Monday.
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.
Going into Saturday, Elections BC said there were 681 ballots outstanding in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, 476 in Surrey City Centre, 995 in Courtenay-Comox, 818 in Kelowna Centre, 634 in Surrey-Guildford and 817 in Maple Ridge East.
As of Saturday’s 4 p.m. update, an additional 497 votes had been counted in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, 300 in Surrey City Centre and 408 in Surrey-Guildford.
Courtenay-Comox saw 769 votes added to its tally on Saturday, while Kelowna Centre saw 593 and Maple Ridge East saw 481.
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 planned 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.