B.C. NDP Leader David Eby arrives to address supporters on election night in Vancouver, Oct. 19, 2024.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
British Columbia Premier David Eby has been asked by Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin to form the next government after a count of absentee votes gave his New Democrats a narrow win in the provincial election.
Eby says he met Austin on Monday, nine days after the vote, and that he will “work hard every day to earn the trust” British Columbians have placed in the party.
Austin says in a separate statement that Eby told her “he is prepared to continue as premier.”
Whether the NDP forms a majority or minority government will depend on whether it hangs onto a razor-thin lead in Surrey-Guildford, where it had 16 more votes than the B.C. Conservatives in an ongoing count of absentee and special votes.
If the NDP wins Surrey-Guildford, it will have enough for the barest majority of 47 seats in the 93-seat legislature, although the prospect of a judicial recount looms because the margin is so tight.
Eby didn’t address whether he would form a majority or minority government, but Green Leader Sonia Furstenau says in a statement that it appears the parties will have to work together for the legislature to function effectively.
The B.C. Conservatives, led by John Rustad, ended the count with at least 44 seats.
Elections BC vote counters were tallying more than 22,000 absentee and special ballots provincewide on Monday, nine days after the province’s election.
A count of more than 43,000 mail-in and assisted telephone votes province-wide over the weekend put the NDP within range of victory in Surrey-Guildford, sending the race down to the absentee ballots. The Conservatives had been ahead by 12 votes going into the tally.
While Monday’s absentee vote could finally produce a winner in the election, there could still be judicial recounts in any riding where the margin is less than 1/500th of all votes cast.
Margins in two ridings were within that threshold at 4 p.m. Monday – Surrey-Guildford, where the recount threshold is about 38 votes, and Kelowna Centre, where the Conservative lead of 43 was below the recount threshold of about 51 votes.
The completion of the hand recount in Juan de Fuca-Malahat on Monday, meanwhile, did not have a significant impact on the margin there, with the NDP leading by 123 votes amid the absentee count.
NDP House Leader Ravi Kahlon said Monday he was “glad to see the numbers come in and I’m glad to see we can move forward.”
“It’s still going to require a lot of co-operation in the legislature. We’re still going to be reaching out to the Greens to find ways to work with them.”
Kahlon said it was too early to say when the legislature would be recalled, but suggested one of the first orders of business will be swearing in a new cabinet.
The NDP said Eby would speak at a media availability at the legislature in Victoria on Tuesday.
After a count of mail-in votes over the weekend saw prospects for an NDP victory increase, some online posts questioned the number of mail-in and absentee votes, the ballots’ origins, the wait between the initial and final counts, and how the votes were handled during that time.
Doubts about the integrity of the election is an “inevitable” result of political “toxicity” and a tight race, said University of British Columbia professor emeritus Richard Johnston, who added that questions about mail-in votes and the handling of ballots also reflect circumstances south of the border.
“There is a relationship between the closeness of results and the toxicity of the commentary around it,” Johnston said.
“I mean, we’re describing almost exactly the situation in the U.S., right? Basically a 50/50 result, so close that each side might have suspicions about the other.”
In a written response to the online speculation, Elections BC spokesman Andrew Watson said the voting authority has “observed misinformation about the electoral process online” and it urged voters to go to its website to get accurate information.
“Initial count takes place on election night,” Watson said. “Final count takes place one week later and lasts three days. This timing is established under the Election Act and has long been the process in B.C.
“At the end of each day of advance voting, cast ballots are secured in a ballot box that is sealed and signed by election officials and scrutineers,” he said. “All election officials swear an oath of office to administer the provisions of the Election Act faithfully.”
Watson said any election official convicted of an offence may face a fine up to $10,000 and a prison term of up to a year.
Aisha Estey, president of the BC Conservative Party, said she spent the weekend in a warehouse watching the counting of mail-in ballots.
In a post on social media, she said: “Elections BC staff have been working tirelessly and doing their best within the confines of the legislation that governs their work.”
“Would we have liked mail-ins to be counted closer to (election day)? Sure,” she added. “But I saw nothing that caused me concern.”
Eby also took to X on Sunday to express support for Elections BC staff “making sure every vote gets counted.”
Johnston said Elections BC’s efforts to make voting more accessible and counting more efficient had actually been feeding integrity doubts.
He said increased use of advance voting, mail-in and absentee ballots, as well as digital vote tabulation, were being compared unfavourably by some with more basic voting and hand-counting systems used in the past.
Dominion Voting Systems, which manufactured the electronic tabulators used in the B.C. election, referred questions to its website page dedicated to misinformation about the company and its technology. It addresses concerns about misinformation that emerged after the U.S. presidential election in 2020.
Fox News agreed last year to pay Dominion nearly US$800 million to avert a trial in the company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the election.
“All Dominion systems are based on voter-verifiable paper ballots or paper records for auditing,” the company said on its web page. “Dominion systems comply with all requirements for system updates and election records retention.”
One major difference with discourse in the United States, Johnston said, was that B.C. party leaders, such as Estey, had so far not engaged in “delegitimization tactics.”
Whether that changes would be something to watch for, he said.
“It’ll be interesting to see whether there’s blowback from the fringes of the Conservative Party against the party’s own leadership,” he said.
B.C. tally turns to absentee ballots as NDP widens lead in two ridings
B.C. Premier David Eby says he's been told by the Green Party that it's too early to begin talks about entering some form of minority government agreement after Saturday's still undecided provincial election. The NDP were elected or leading in 46 ridings, the B.C. Conservatives in 45, and the Greens were elected in two.
The Canadian Press