B.C. NDP hangs on to power, will form next government, CBC News projects
David Eby's British Columbia NDP appears to have fended off the John Rustad Conservative surge by a razor-thin margin to form the next provincial government, CBC News projects.
Whether the party forms a minority or majority government is still uncertain.
Currently, the NDP has been elected in 46 ridings and is leading in one, with the Conservatives elected in 43 and leading in one. The B.C. Greens have been elected in two ridings.
A majority requires winning 47 of the 93 seats in the B.C. Legislature.
The victory is a result of Monday's absentee and special ballot counts in the most competitive ridings, which took place 10 days after the Oct. 19 final voting day, where a clear winner did not emerge.
Key to securing the win was NDP candidate Dana Lajeunesse in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, projected elected by CBC News with a lead of 125 votes over Conservative Marina Sapozhnikov.
Surrey-Guildford nail-biter
A nail-biter in the riding of Surrey-Guildford that is still too close to call currently has NDP incumbent Garry Begg leading Conservative Honveer Singh Randhawa by 18 votes.
Should the NDP win that riding, it would give it enough seats for a majority and eliminate the need to court the B.C. Greens to form a minority government under a Confidence and Supply Agreement, as was the case after the 2017 provincial election.
The only other riding CBC News has yet to call is Courtenay-Comox, where Conservative Brennan Day leads NDP incumbent Ronna-Rae Leonard by 92 votes.
Currently, there are five ridings where the margin between the elected candidate and runner-up is less than 200 votes.
Recounts possible
According to Elections B.C., if the difference between the top two candidates is less than 1/500th of the total ballots considered, a judicial recount must take place.
Judicial recounts are conducted by a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia and can also be requested by a candidate by the Nov. 4 deadline on the following basis:
Votes were not correctly accepted, or ballots were not correctly rejected.
Unopened or resealed certification envelopes or secrecy enclosures contain ballots that should be considered.
A ballot account does not accurately record the number of votes for a candidate.
The final count did not correctly calculate the total number of votes for a candidate.
The final vote count will be completed on Monday, according to Elections B.C., with a news release coming to confirm any judicial recounts.