The initial vote count is complete in all electoral districts across the province, and Elections BC is administering the final count for the 2024 Provincial General Election.

Under the Election Act, final count cannot begin until at least the fourth day after Final Voting Day, and candidates cannot officially be declared elected until final count is complete. Final count is scheduled for October 26 to October 28.

The initial count began after polls closed at 8 p.m. Pacific time on October 19, Elections BC reported.

Results from voting places with tabulators were reported faster than ever before, with first results reported within 15 minutes and over 50% of results within 30 minutes. There were non-technology voting places throughout the province, and results from these manual counts were not reported until later in the evening. Extensive out-of-district results from B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also took more time to report, Elections BC said.

Elections BC’s goal was to report 50% of preliminary results by 8:30 p.m., which was achieved with 59% of preliminary results reported by that time. By 9 p.m. 85% of preliminary results had been reported. Under the manual counting processes in the 2017 B.C. election, 13.5% of preliminary results had been reported by 9 p.m. on election night.

Results reporting on election night slowed after 9 p.m. for several reasons. The manual count of ballots at non-technology voting places took longer to complete and report.

For voting places with tabulators, election officials were focused on reporting out-of-district ballots. Out-of-district ballots take longer to report because election officials must report ballots from multiple electoral districts (in some voting places ballots from over 50 other districts had been cast).

On Elections BC’s website, many districts showed their results complete except for one ballot box from Final Voting Day. Before confirming that all ballot boxes from advance voting and final voting have reported, election officials check that the results they have reported are accurate as a quality assurance measure. This process took time but was essential to ensure results had been reported accurately.

Results reporting paused early in the morning on October 20 with results 99.72% reported, and resumed later on the morning of October 20.

Most types of ballots are counted at initial count. This includes ballots from advance voting, Final Voting Day, and mail-in ballots received by mail before the close of advance voting. Some ballots cannot be counted until final count, because they require additional integrity checks to ensure the voter was eligible to vote and that they only voted once. Ballots counted at final count include mail-in ballots returned after the close of advance voting, and out-of-district ballots cast by voters at non-technology voting places.

Election officials are now preparing for final count, scheduled for October 26 to 28.

As part of this process, further quality assurance checks are conducted on the results reported at initial count. Any transcription errors identified will be corrected on the Elections BC website and candidates will be notified. Ballots considered at final count are screened before being counted to ensure that the voter was eligible and that they only voted once.

Final count includes absentee and mail-in ballots that cannot be counted at initial count.

The majority of the ballots counted at final count will be mail-in ballots. Packages could be returned up until 8 p.m. Pacific time on October 19, either by mail or in person. Many packages were received close to the deadline and must be counted at final count.

Elections BC estimates that approximately 49,000 ballots will be considered at part of final count. A breakdown of the number of ballots being considered at final count by electoral district will be provided before final count starts.

Voting results will be updated on Elections BC’s website during preparations for final count the week of October 21 (to correct any transcription errors) and while final count progresses from October 26 to 28.

District electoral officer recounts will take place in the Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre electoral districts. The outcomes of these two recounts could change the current outcome of the election.

As it stands right now, the BC NDP has 46 seats, the Conservative Party 45 and the Green Party two, with 47 seats required for a majority government.

Under the Election Act, recounts must take place in these districts because the difference between the top two candidates is 100 votes or fewer. These recounts will take place as part of final count between October 26 and 28. Under the Election Act, ballots at district electoral officer recounts are counted manually, by hand. Candidates or official agents had up to Oct. 22 to seek district electoral officer recounts.

Recount requests may only be made for the reasons outlined in section 139(2) of the Election Act.

Judicial recounts may occur after the conclusion of final count. If the difference between the top two candidates in an electoral district is less than 1/500^th of the total ballots considered, a judicial recount must take place. Judicial recounts are conducted by a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia and may include some or all of the ballots in an election. Judicial recounts can also be requested by a candidate for the same reasons as a district electoral officer recount (see section 139(2) of the Election Act).

Judicial recount requests must be made within six days of the conclusion of final count (November 4).

There appears to be no doubt that Conservative Party candidates Pete Davis and Scott McInnes have captured MLA seats in Kootenay Rockies and Columbia River-Revelstoke.

Voter turnout

At the conclusion of initial count, voter turnout was estimated to be 57.41%.  This is up from the last B.C. election in 2020, in which 53.86% of registered voters cast a ballot.

As of the close of initial count, 2,037,897 ballots have been cast, the most ever in a provincial election in B.C., Elections BC reported. The previous record was 1,986,374 votes cast in the 2017 provincial election.

e-KNOW file photo

e-KNOW

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