The full results of the 2024 provincial election in B.C. may not be known for up to a week, as officials tally a number of close races and the B.C. NDP and B.C. Conservatives are in a dead heat.
As of 8 a.m. PT on Sunday, the NDP were leading or elected in 46 seats, the Conservatives in 45 seats and the B.C. Greens were elected in two seats. In the B.C. Legislature, 47 seats are required to form a majority government.
However, based on preliminary results, CBC News has not projected the winners of 11 ridings — with the NDP leading in six of those, and the Conservatives in five.
Some of those ridings are likely to be subject to an automatic recount — in any ridings where the margin of victory is 100 votes or less.
The winners of those recounts will be determined during the final counting period between Oct. 26 and 28, according to Elections B.C.
In addition, Elections B.C. says that it will tally mail-in ballots and out-of-district votes in a number of ridings. As of midnight PT on Sunday, officials said that less than 0.3 per cent of preliminary results remained to be reported.
“Sixteen districts are continuing to count out-of-district ballots. These ballots take longer to count for several reasons,” wrote an Elections B.C. spokesperson in a midnight statement.
“With B.C.’s vote anywhere model, some districts are reporting out-of-district results from dozens of other contests. Write-in ballots also take longer to count than ordinary ballots.”
Officials said “election official availability and weather-related disruptions” delayed some preliminary results.
Elections B.C. is set to continue counting votes on Sunday morning, and CBC News will update this story if it is able to project a winner.
Once the amount of mail-in ballots are revealed in each riding, CBC News may be able to project the results for some close ridings before final counting on Oct. 26.
Echoes of 2017 election
The NDP’s Adrian Dix, incumbent health minister and the winner of the Vancouver-Renfrew riding, said that Saturday’s election mirrored the 2017 election — which eventually saw the NDP form a minority government through a confidence and supply agreement with the Greens.
The results of that election were not known for a few days afterwards, but Dix cautioned that counting would still take place on Sunday morning.
“This is an extremely close election. The elections in B.C., really all my lifetime, have been four per cent either way — and this was no exception,” he told the CBC’s Rosemary Barton.
Dix said that the NDP’s preliminary popular vote share, at 44.5 per cent, was the third-highest in the party’s nearly century-long history.
“When you look at the NDP and the Green votes, there is a significant progressive majority in the province,” he said.
“But all of that said, it is very very disappointing of course when you lose such outstanding colleagues.”
Chief Political Correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks with BC NDP MLA Adrian Dix about the incredibly close B.C. election and what it means for the future of the B.C. NDP.
Parties watching and waiting
Peter Milobar, who won as a Conservative candidate in Kamloops Centre and was previously a long-time B.C. Liberal MLA for the area, said that his party was waiting and watching to see how the results would shake out on Sunday.
“Things could swing so dramatically one way or the other, in terms of is it a minority government, is it a majority,” he told CBC News.
Milobar said he had had conversations with Conservative Leader John Rustad after Saturday, but that talks about potentially forming an alliance with the Greens would be had by the leader and not him.
CBC News reached out to the newly elected B.C. Green MLAs and party Leader Sonia Furstenau for an interview Sunday, but they declined requests.