BC Conservative candidate Kristina Loewen and BC NDP candidate Loyal Wooldridge.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED
October 24, 2024 - 2:00 PM
With the BC Conservatives and BC NDP neck and neck in the election, Kelowna Centre is the only riding where a recount is happening by request because of an error.
The final election results won’t be delivered by Elections BC until Sunday. The initial count after the Oct. 19 election ended with neither Premier David Eby's NDP nor the B.C. Conservatives led by John Rustad securing the 47 ridings needed for a majority.
In Kelowna Centre, BC Conservative Kristina Loewen is ahead of BC NDP’s Loyal Wooldridge by 148 votes, but one ballot transcription error was enough for Elections BC to grant Wooldridge’s recount request, according to a press release from Elections BC.
Elections BC said the ballot transcription error was likely caused by a mistake by an election official. The riding’s recount will be a partial recount done by hand.
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, the Elections BC release said.
"We look forward to the finalization of the count. We thank Elections BC for running an efficient program and including our scrutineers in the count," Loewen said in an emailed statement to iNFOnews.ca.
Loyal Wooldridge declined to comment.
Two other ridings, Surrey City Centre and Juan De Fuca-Malahat, are getting an automatic recount because the difference between first and second place was less than 100 votes.
The initial count had BC NDP candidate Amna Shah ahead of BC Conservative Zeeshan Wahla in Surrey City Centre, and BC NDP Dana Jajeunesse ahead of BC Conservative Marina Sapozhnikov in Juan de Fuca-Malahat.
The recounts in all three ridings will begin on Sunday, Oct. 27.
The election agency also says in a statement that screening of uncounted absentee and mail-in ballots has identified 65,000 votes provincewide that will also be tallied from Saturday until Monday, up from the previous estimate of 49,000.
Elections BC said the final count will be finished Monday, Oct. 28.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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