Garry Begg has officially claimed Surrey-Guildford back for the NDP by a margin of 22 votes, following a just-concluded official recount.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kevin Loo officially declared the recount over around 1 p.m. Friday (Nov. 8).
"The difference between the two leading candidates at the conclusion of this judicial recount is 22 votes, accordingly, the voters of the Surrey-Guildford electoral district have elected Garry Begg to represent them as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia," Loo said.
The recount ended with 8, 947 votes for Begg, to 8,925 for Conservative challenger Honveer Singh Randhawa. After Elections BC finished its final count of election results on Oct. 28, Begg held a 27-vote lead. That was later shaved to just 21 votes after the discovery of 28 initially unreported ballots.
In the final tally, independent candidate Kabir Qurban received 370 votes and B.C. Green Party candidate Manjeet Singh Sahota received 824 votes.
"I will issue a certificate of the results of this election to the district Electoral Officer after 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12, unless there is an appeal," Loo said.
Counsel for both candidates were on hand at the recount and have agreed with the results.
"I am satisfied that the results were both accurately and efficiently determined and that the process was thorough, carefully carried out and transparent," Loo said.
He also commended counsel for both parties for "resolving most of the disputes about ballots without the court's involvement."
The win officially secures a majority government for David Eby and the B.C. NDP, with 47 seats in the 93-seat legislature.
The recount 鈥� which had been ordered because the margin of victory was less than 1/500th of the total votes cast 鈥� began with counting the unreported ballots and worked its way through all 19,090 ballots, including more than 1,600 votes that were cast outside of the riding.
In the end, 19,066 ballots were valid and 24 were rejected.
The recount began on Thursday (Nov. 8) with examining the 28 ballots that had yet to be reported because of what Elections BC had called a data-entry mistake. All 28 were valid, with eight votes for Begg, one for Qurban, 14 for Randhawa and five for Sahota.
The recount was held in a warehouse in Newton, where it continued all day Thursday (Nov. 7) and restarted at 9 a.m. Friday.
The high-ceilinged warehouse was divided into two parts by makeshift walls, which separated the makeshift courtroom from people counting ballots.
The teams of counters were paired with scrutineers from the New Democrats and the B.C. Conservatives and could be seen holding ballots in the air and agreeing on each vote.
Jill Lawrance, executive director of electoral operations at Elections BC said Thursday (Nov. 8) teams "make their best assessment of the intent of the voter."
"If scrutineers raise an objection, both parties come to the table and if they agree on the vote, the judge has indicated he doesn't need to see it," Lawrance explained Thursday. "But if there's a disagreement about who that vote should count for, that ballot will be brought to the judge, he will look at the ballot, hear arguments from both sides and determine who the vote should count for."
The judicial recount in Kelowna Centre and partial recount in Prince George-Mackenzie also finished on Friday (Nov. 8).
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Alison J. Beames declared Kristina Loewen of the Conservative Party elected for Kelowna Centre with 11,033 valid votes. B.C. NDP candidate Loyal Wooldridge received 10,993 votes, independent candidate Michael Humer received 2,613, and B.C. Green Party candidate Bryce Tippe received 1,111.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ronald S. Tindale declared Kiel Giddens of the Conservative Party elected for Prince George-Mackenzie with 11,310 valid votes. B.C. NDP candidate Shar McCrory received 5,242 votes, B.C. Green Party candidate James Steidle received 1,577 and Independent candidate Rachael Weber received 435.
-With files from the Canadian Press
