NDP incumbent Garry Begg has claimed the Surrey-Guildford riding for the New Democrats by a margin of just 27 votes — but a judicial recount is on the horizon.
Elections BC has just announced, as of 6:49 p.m., that all votes have been counted and results are confirmed in all ridings. Both Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna Centre will now be undergoing judicial recounts because the margin of victory between the top two candidates is less than 1/500th of the total number of votes cast.
Begg's victory gives David Eby and the NDP a majority government, with 47 seats.
Begg had initially lost the vote count on Election Night, falling short by 103 votes. But, during mail-in vote counting over the weekend, Begg moved to within 12 votes of Conservative Honveer Singh Randhawa. By the end of Saturday (Oct. 26), Begg had climbed to 8,809 votes, compared to Randhawa's 8,821 — closing the original 103-vote gap.
That left just absentee ballots to count, a task that began this morning.
By 10 a.m. Monday, Randhawa's lead shrunk to just nine votes.
At 11 a.m., the lead was down to just four votes — 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 in Surrey-Guildford 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.
The 4 p.m. totals gave Begg 8,922 votes, 18 more than Randhawa's 8,904. By 5 p.m., Begg's lead stood at 16 votes.
With a total of 19,039 ballots cast in Surrey-Guildford, it took a margin of less than 38 votes to trigger a judicial recount.
The Surrey-Guildford seat will give the B.C. NDP the 47 seats necessary for a majority, should the judicial recount fall their way.
A judicial recount is conducted by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and may include some or all of the ballots and certification envelopes for an election. The timing of the recount will be determined by the Court, Elections BC said.
Meanwhile, in Surrey-City Centre, New Democrat Amna Shah's lead grew to 236 votes. The riding was one of two that had been recounted over the weekend because the margin of victory on Election Night was under 100 votes.
