More than 60 people are working together to complete the judicial recount for Kelowna-Centre at the Trinity Church on Springfield Road.
After the final count for the 2024 Provincial Election concluded on Oct. 28, Elections BC applied to have judicial recounts performed in the Kelowna-Centre and Surrey-Guildford ridings due to razor thin victories.
As per the Elections Act, an judicial recount warranted if the difference between the top two candidates falls within 1/500 of the total ballots cast, as it does in Kelowna-Centre.
After all 25,747 ballots cast in the Kelowna-Centre riding were tabulated, only a narrow margin of 40 votes separated the B.C. Conservative MLA candidate Kristina Loewen from B.C. NDP candidate, Loyal Wooldridge.
On Nov. 7, the first day of what is scheduled to be a two day recount, staff from Elections B.C., representatives from both the B.C. Conservatives and the B.C. NDP, scrutineers, data collectors, sheriffs and B.C. Supreme Court Justice Beames were working together on the second floor of the Trinity Church to verify and count each ballot.
A partial recount will also take place in the Prince George-Mackenzie riding to tally votes from an uncounted ballot box that was found to contain about 861 votes. The outcome of the partial recount will not change the outcome of the election as the B.C. Conservatives have a lead of more than 5,000 votes.
A recount in the Surrey-Guildford riding is underway at a warehouse in Newton.
A record 2,107,152 voters across the province participated in the 2024 provincial election, which the NDP ultimately won with 47 seats in the B.C. Legislature.
With files from Anna Burns
