Home Election Tracker By-Elections Langford-Juan de Fuca: June 24 election day RESULTS

Langford-Juan de Fuca: June 24 election day RESULTS

And the winner is...

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Island Social Trends
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election results, langford-juan de fuca, june 24, 2023
SHORT-RUN PRINTING | LAMINATING | MAIL-OUT SUPPORT

Saturday June 24, 2023 | LANGFORD, BC [Updated June 26, 2023]

by Mary P Brooke, Editor | Island Social Trends

ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS BY-ELECTION NEWS ARCHIVE | ELECTIONS BC BY-ELECTION WEBSITE

RESULTS ARE IN!

Depending on how you voted today in the Langford-Juan de Fuca provincial by-election will be part of tonight’s result. Voters were in Langford, Sooke, Highlands and Juan de Fuca.

Heading into today’s 12-hour voting opportunity (8 am to 8 pm), the advance vote turnout had been 13.2% of the total 51,517 eligible voters. By 4 pm today there was a 20% turnout. All of that is relatively strong for a by-election (by-elections generally see lower turnout than general elections).

Final turnout (as of 9:20 pm) was 13,542 votes or 26.3%. The BC NDP has returned an MLA to the legislature from Langford-Juan de Fuca. Ravi Parmar carried 53.35% of the popular vote with 7,224 votes tallied.

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June 24 by-election results:

Candidates in today’s Langford-Juan de Fuca race produced these results (preliminary/final as of 9:20 pm — Elections BC final count coming June 28):

  • Camille Currie – BC Green – 2,386 votes (17.62%)
  • Mike Harris – BC Conservative – 2,689 votes (19.86%)
  • Elena Lawson – BC United – 1,169 votes (8.63%)
  • Ravi Parmar – BC NDP – 7,224 votes (53.35%)
  • Tyson Riel Strandlund – Communist Party – 74 votes (0.55%)

Those results include the advance voting (eight ballot boxes) together with tonight’s 15 final ballot boxes.

You can also check the Elections BC website.

Anomaly at the SEAPARC voting place in Sooke:

Voting results from the SEAPARC Leisure Complex voting location in Sooke will be recounted on June 28, for full transparency. The recount involves counting the results on the marked paper ballots like ‘in the olden days’.

That’s because there was some confusion from election officials on how to produce a tabulator tape result. They powered-down the ballot counting machine before producing the results tape. Rebooting the box will not cause any votes to be lost, said an Elections BC official at the DEO in Langford this evening, in an interview with Island Social Trends.

ballot box, june 2023
New Elections BC digital ballot boxes in the June 24, 2023 by-election. [Island Social Trends]

“We will open the box up and count those ballots by hand,” said the Elections BC official at the District Electoral Office in Langford this evening. The hand-count will be checked against that of the tabulator tape.

Rebooting the machine does not cause any loss of vote-data, said an Elections BC official this evening.

The recount will not involve advance voting, which was counted and processed just fine after June 21.

Analysis:

In many circles it was not a surprise that Ravi Parmar won the riding. He was former Premier John Horgan’s pick from long ago. Parmar has been mentored by Horgan all the way along, including through Parmar’s now 10 years as a Sooke School District trustee. Parmar had a ready-made team of experienced NDP volunteers who delivered their usual strong ground-game with signage, door knocking and organizing volunteers.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was the large result for the BC Conservatives, especially as candidate Mike Harris was relatively unknown on the political scene. Some are thinking that the BC Liberals name change to BC United was confusing for voters and still identified with the dark blue party colour (of the former BC Liberals) for the dark blue of the Conservatives in this campaign. It also probably helped that the Harris team plastered signs around town — many in the same spot — for people to take one home.

The Greens ended up by a slim margin in third place, after a high-energy positive campaign by Camille Currie that seemed to truly energize the riding with enthusiasm for the by-election process. Currie had the support of party leader Sonia Furstenau in the riding from day one, as well as MLA Adam Olsen and Dr Sanjiv Gandhi (the party’s second deputy leader) was at her campaign office this evening. Currie told Island Social Trends shortly ahead of 8 pm that she and her team did two sign waves today, as well as a bit of canvassing and dropping into coffee shops and a food event at Westshore Town Centre.

Interview with Ravi Parmar:

ravi parmar, election night, june 24, 2003
BC NDP candidate Ravi Parmar delivered his acceptance speech at his campaign office on Saturday evening, June 24, 2023. [Mary P Brooke / Island Social Trends]

Parmar made a short but upbeat speech in his campaign office to the pleasure of about 100 people including family members and long-time members of both the NDP and the Langford community.

In a quick interview with Parmar after his speech, he said he’d spent a lot of time door-knocking and talking to voters. “I learned very quickly throughout the constituency — whether it was here in Langford, the Highlands, Sooke or all the way out to Port Renfrew that people have been appreciative of the tradition of service that they expect from the NDP, whether that is John Horgan or his predecessors like his friend Moe Sihota,” said Parmar.

“So there’s been a tradition of strong service, a strong representation. And my record as a school trustee I hope to be able to take that — and the record I’ve been able to deliver on new schools and translate that into addressing health-care challenges, making sure we’re building more infrastructure and addressing the cost of living issue,” Parmar said this evening.

“I’m so incredibly thankful to the people of Langford-Juan de Fuca for putting their trust in me, and I’m so excited about the opportunity to get to work for them.”

Parmar said he’s planning to advocate in the BC NDP caucus for the needs of the people of Langford-Juan de Fuca and “delivering for them over the next couple of years”. There is fast-coming up another province-wide election in October 2024.

John Horgan is “my hero, my mentor, my friend — I think so highly of him,” said Parmar to reporters at the campaign office this evening. “He was a true personal support for me during challenging times. He helped me during my school district campaign, and he’s helped me become the next MLA here,” said Parmar about Horgan who kept interrupting Parmar during interviews and photo-ops… maybe missing the limelight a bit?

“People like John because he’s John. And I hope by the results here today and over the next weeks and months as I serve the people of Langford-Juan de Fuca they’ll like me because I’m me, and I’m someone who will follow in his footsteps and create a legacy of delivering services and supports for the infrastructure in the growing community,” said Parmar.

Parmar met with developers during the campaign. He says there needs to be a lot more work on housing in the area including building more affordable housing and rental apartments. Housing for seniors and young people were also on his list, as well as “Indigenous families and those who need it most”. He looks forward to “partnering with his friend Ravi Kahlon” (Minister of Housing) as a colleague in this work. He’s going push “big time” for building more rentals in the westshore, said Parmar this evening.

MORE TO COME

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===== Background from 2020:

The 2020 province-wide election saw a 53.86% overall voter turnout acxross BC.

  • Voting on Election Day: 28.8%
  • Advance voting: 35.4%
  • Voting by mail: 31.4%
  • Absentee voting: 4.4%
deo, district electoral office, langford
The Langford-Juan de Fuca District Electoral Office (DEO) is at 110-955 Reunion Ave in Langford. [Photo May 30, 2023 | Island Social Trends]

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===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:

Island Social Trends (and the previous publications MapleLine Magazine 2008-2010, Sooke Voice News 2011-2013, and West Shore Voice News 2014-2020) delivers socioeconomic news insights about life on the west shore of south Vancouver Island.

All news is posted at IslandSocialTrends.ca . Editor Mary P Brooke.

Published by Brookeline Publishing House Inc.

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