Today (Monday), all eyes in B.C. are on Surrey-Guildford, where what happens with the absentee ballot count could determine the fate of the B.C. election.
Elections BC says an estimated 226 absentee ballots in the riding are to be counted today (Monday, Oct. 28), with and, based on the latest numbers, a judicial recount looming.
Over the weekend, NDP incumbent Garry Begg moved to within 12 votes of Conservative candidate Honveer Singh Randhawa after mail-in votes were counted on Saturday (Oct. 26).
Begg climbed to 8,809 votes, compared to Randhawa's 8,821 B次元官网网址� closing the original 103-vote gap.
By 10 a.m. Monday, Randhawa's lead shrunk to just nine votes.
By 11 a.m., the lead was down to just four votes B次元官网网址� 8,826 for Randhawa and 8,822 for Begg, with around 200 absentee ballots yet to be tallied.
At noon Monday, Begg took the lead with 8,843 votes over Randhawa's 8,829 as results continued to come in.
At 1 p.m., Elections BC's hourly update still had Begg in the lead by just nine votes, with some absentee ballots still not counted.
The 2 p.m. tally had Begg in the lead by 18 votes, with 8,911 votes compared to 8,893 for Randhawa.
By 3 p.m., Begg had a 17-vote lead with 19,008 ballots counted and 28 to be tallied, inching closer to an automatic judicial review in the riding.
With the provincial race sitting at 46 NDP, 45 Conservative and two Green, the riding could determine whether David Eby's NDP have earned the 47 seats necessary for a majority.
But it may yet take some time to decide who wins Surrey-Guildford.
Elections BC spokesperson Wesley MacInnis noted that, once final count is complete today (Monday, Oct. 28), Elections BC will be able to confirm if a district will go to an automatic judicial recount. If the difference between the top two candidates following the conclusion of final count is less than 1/500th of the total ballots considered, there will be an automatic judicial recount in that district.
With an estimated total of 19,036 ballots cast in Surrey-Guildford (subject to shift slightly today), that would mean a margin of less than 38 votes to trigger a judicial recount.
More to come as results are released.
