Recounts for two ridings in BC Election
Posted May 13, 2017 2:13 pm.
Last Updated June 15, 2017 4:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The result of Tuesday’s provincial election could hinge on recounts in Vancouver-False Creek and Courtenay-Comox, to be held later this month.
Elections BC has approved recounts in those ridings, while rejecting requests for new tallies in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, Maple Ridge-Mission, or Richmond-Queensborough.
As the count stands, the Liberals have 43 seats, the NDP has 41 and the Green Party has three. A party needs to win 44 ridings to form majority government, meaning the BC Liberals need to pick up just one more.
In Courtenay-Comox, the difference between the top two candidates is only nine votes, with the NDP’s Ronna-Rae Leonard in front of Liberal Jim Benninger.
In Vancouver-False Creek, BC Liberal and former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan is ahead. Elections BC says BC Citizens’ First candidate Phillip Ryan’s request for a recount was accepted because an advance voting ballot account records 403 votes for one candidate, and the tally sheet and parcel envelope containing ballots for that candidate lists 399. The NDP’s Morgane Oger also requested a recount of that riding.
Political scientist Hamish Telford with the University of the Fraser Valley figures nothing much will change in False Creek leaving the Courtnenay-Comox riding the difference maker.
“Not only for the recount because there could easily be a mistake of nine votes in the recount but for the absentee ballots, which should be fairly numerous. If there really are as many as 180,000 absentee ballots, some of these other narrow ridings which are not going to be recounted now, conceivably the outcomes could change once the absentee ballots are counted.”
Elections BC says it rejected recount requests for Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, Maple Ridge-Mission,and Richmond-Queensborough because they did not meet the requirements of the Election Act.
Under the Election Act, recount requests are accepted if:
- the difference between the top two candidates is close (defined in the Election Act as 100 votes or fewer); or
- votes were not correctly accepted or ballots were not correctly rejected, or a ballot account does not accurately record the number of votes for a candidate.
The approved recounts will take place during the final count, to be held from May 22nd to 24th. Absentee votes are also counted at this time.
