The NDP has overtaken the B.C. Conservatives in the ongoing count of absentee votes in a crucial Metro Vancouver riding, putting Premier David Eby on course to win government with a razor-thin majority.
The NDP now leads Surrey-Guildford by 14 votes and if it hangs on there and in other races, it would have a one-seat majority in the 93-riding legislature.
Elections BC officials are counting more than 22,000 absentee and special ballots provincewide today, nine days after the province’s election.
The Conservatives had been ahead in the closest race of Surrey-Guildford by 12 votes going into the tally, but there were an estimated 226 votes still to count and each hourly update saw that lead whittled away.
In a noon update by the elections authority, the NDP was elected or leading in 47 seats, while John Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives were leading or elected in 44 and the Greens had won two seats.
In Juan de Fuca-Malahat, where an official recount is underway, the New Democrat candidate was leading the Conservative by 113 votes.
A count of more than 43,000 mail-in and assisted telephone votes over the weekend put the NDP within range of victory in Surrey-Guildford, sending the race down to the absentee ballots.
While today’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.
In Surrey-Guildford, where an estimated 19,306 votes were cast, the margin for a judicial recount is about 38 votes or fewer.
