Elections BC to hold recounts in two of five closely contested ridings

Elections BC will be holding recounts in two of five contested ridings after Tuesday’s extremely close provincial election. The results of the recounts could potentially give the BC Liberals a majority government.

Recounts were requested in Courtenay-Comox, Maple Ridge-Mission, Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, Richmond-Queensborough and Vancouver-False Creek, but will only occur in Courtenay-Comox and Vancouver-False Creek.

Election BC’s decision means the BC NDP’s Bob D’Eith will remain the elected MLA in Maple Ridge-Mission, the BC Liberals’ Jas Johal will remain the elected MLA for Richmond-Queensborough and the Liberal’s Joan Isaacs will remain the elected MLA for Coquitlam-Burke Mountain.

In Courtenay-Comox, just nine votes currently separate Jim Benninger of the Liberal party from the NDP’s Ronna-Rae Leonard. While the NDP currently hold the riding, if the Liberals were to take it in a recount, the party would win a majority government — so long as absentee ballots not counted until May 22 don’t lose them any ridings.

Elections BC says recounts are accepted when the difference between the top two candidates is 100 votes or fewer or votes were not correctly accepted, ballots were not correctly rejected or a ballot account does not accurately record the number of votes for a candidate.

The latter reason is why a recount will take place in Vancouver-False Creek, where results were close but not close enough to warrant a recount.

The elections authority says a recount was accepted there because an advance voting ballot account recorded 403 votes for one candidate while the tally sheet and parcel envelope containing ballots for that candidate only listed 399 votes.

In Vancouver-False Creek, the Liberal’s Sam Sullivan was elected with 560 votes more than the NDP’s Morgane Oger.

As it stands, the Liberals hold 43 seats, the NDP has 41 and the Greens have three.

The recounts will take place between May 22 and 24 as part of the final count. More than 170,000 absentee ballots will also be counted, potentially impacting the elections’s outcome.