Elections British Columbia released partial results of the final count for British Columbia's 2024 provincial election on Saturday afternoon, with the data showing NDP candidates winning some close races.
NDP candidates widened their leads in close races in Juan de Fuca Malahat and inner-city Surrey, while closing the gap on leading Conservative candidates in several other elections.
However, so far, the counting of mail-in ballots or absentee ballots has not resulted in a change of leader in any electoral district.
The closest race in the province, according to BC's election update at 4 p.m., was in Surrey-Guildford, where Conservative candidate Honveer Singh Randhawa edged incumbent NDP candidate Gary Page 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 NDP candidates, with each candidate widening their lead in Saturday's updates.
Dana Lajeunes widened her lead over Conservative Party candidate Marina Sapozhnikov in Juan de Fuca-Malahat from just 23 votes on election night to 106 votes on Saturday.
In inner-city Surrey, it was a similar story for NDP candidate Amna Shah, who widened her lead over Conservative Zeeshan Wahla from 95 to 178 votes.
There will be recounts in both rounds – in which votes cast at polling stations are counted, either in advance or on the day of voting – because the difference between the two main candidates was less than 100 votes in the initial count. Counting begins Sunday; results from Surrey City Center are expected the same day and results from Juan de Fuca-Malahat are expected on Monday.
Three other races were within one percentage point Saturday afternoon. Those places were Courtenay-Comox, Kelowna Center and Maple Ridge East.
The Conservatives led all three on election night, and all three gained a narrow lead on Saturday.
In Courtenay-Comox, Conservative Brennan Day leads NDP incumbent Ronna Rae Leonard by 116 votes, almost half of the 234 votes she led on election night.
In Kelowna Centre, Conservative MP Christina Lewin leads the pro-NDP Wooldridge Party by 72 votes. His lead on election night was 148.
In Maple Ridge East, where Conservative Lawrence Mook led incumbent NDP candidate Bob Deith by 327 votes in the initial count, Mook's lead fell to 163 votes on Saturday.
Notably, there are hundreds of votes left to count in each of these close rounds.
The British Columbia Elections Authority said it will count mail-in votes in the closest election rounds first, and agency records indicate that counting of mail-in votes has been completed in all five rounds. However, hundreds of absentee ballots, scheduled to be counted Monday, remain outstanding in each precinct.
Heading into Saturday, Elections BC said there were 681 outstanding ballots in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, 476 in central Surrey, 995 in Courtenay-Comox, 818 in Kelowna Centre, 634 in Surrey-Guildford and 817 in Maple Ridge East.
As of Saturday's 4:00 pm update, an additional 497 votes had been counted in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, 300 in Surrey City Center and 408 in Surrey-Guildford.
Courtenay-Comox saw 769 votes added to its tally on Saturday, while Kelowna Center had 593 votes and Maple Ridge East had 481 votes.
The final vote count began Saturday, with more than 66,000 mail-in and absentee votes likely to be counted across all 93 precincts. Counting is expected to continue through the end of the week and into Monday.
The addition of these more than 66,000 votes has the potential to change the results of a very close election, in which the primary count ended last weekend with the BC NDP leading by 46 votes and the BC Conservatives by 45. The British Columbia Party won 45 rounds. The Greens lead by two.
Forty-seven seats are needed for a majority, so an NDP victory of one or two Conservative seats in the final count could give that party the ability to form a government without the help of another party's MPPs. .
If the seat count does not change, the Greens will hold the balance of power in a minority legislature, and NDP Leader David Eby or Conservative Leader Jon Rustad will need Green support to become prime minister.
Data released by British Columbia Elections on Friday afternoon shows that a total of 66,074 “certification envelopes” have been accepted for the final count.
The counting process will include opening the envelopes and separating the ballots they contain from the envelopes themselves and their security sleeves.
Any envelopes containing no ballots or multiple ballots will be set aside and not counted, BC Elections said.
British Columbia Elections said earlier this week that it plans to share partial results of the final count at 1 p.m. and again at 4 p.m. on Saturday, and again at that time on Sunday.
CTV News will update this story with the latest results as they come in over the weekend.
