Friday October 25, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 5:30 pm | Updated at 1);25 pm]
Political analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The total number of ballots to be considered at the 2024 BC provincial election final count this weekend (during Oct 26 to 28) is 66,074 says Elections BC in a news release at 5:18 pm today.
About two thirds of the ballots (43,538) are mail-in and assisted-phone votes, while about 1/3 (22,536) are special & absentee ballots. These ballots will be applied across all 93 ridings in the province.
Vote-anywhere:
The wide-option vote-anywhere Elections BC process for this election has in some ways complicated and slowed down the vote-reporting process.
Meanwhile, in this 2024 election more people came out to advance voting over six days than in previous elections.
Automatic recount in two ridings:
Two ridings are undergoing automatic recounts due to having fewer than 100 votes between the top two candidates:
- Juan de Fuca-Malahat (23-vote margin between BC NDP and BC Conservative candidates) –initial count was 23,218 votes (three candidates); now 681 incoming ballots to be counted.
- Surrey City Centre (93-vote margin between BC NDP and BC Conservative candidates) — initial count was 13,933 votes (five candidates); now 476 incoming ballots to be counted.
These additional ballots from other processes other than advance and election day voting will have an impact in all ridings, especially the close-count scenarios.
Usual pattern:
In past elections usually the balance of vote assignment (i.e. for which party) tends to favour the BC NDP candidates. If this pattern holds then the Juan de Fuca-Malahat race may well see the final result stay with the BC NDP candidate (Dana Lajeunesse).
Election night notables:
Regardless of which party forms government there will be 58 new MLAs in a legislature of 93.
That will require a lot of time for the newly-elected representatives to get up to speed with the job. There will be pressures on returning MLAs and staff to assure the skill level of new MLAs.
And either way, the two BC Green MLAs will have an inordinate amount of influence as in the government’s expectation of their support for getting any legislation passed.
Voters might rightfully be dismayed at this election result, as it’s almost certainly going to an unstable governing scenario at the BC Legislature for as long as the new government lasts.
===== RELATED:
- BC provincial election final count coming up Oct 28 (October 24, 2024)
- Tight race in Juan de Fuca-Malahat exposes long-time political divide (October 20, 2024)
- Official recounts, voter turnout, statement from Premier David Eby (October 20, updated October 21, 2024)
- Don’t be that voter who lets rain spoil the result (October 19, 2024)
- BC Election advance voter turnout 39.3% across eight ridings in Greater Victoria (October 17, 2024)
- Who’s gonna win BC Election 2024? (October 16, 2024)
- Marina Sapozhnikov admires Rustad for his courage (October 13, 2024)
- Dana Lajeunesse hopes to follow in John Horgan’s local footsteps (October 12, 2024)
- David Evans for Juan de Fuca-Malahat: he’s Green, he’s local (October 11, 2024)
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