BC Conservative leader John Rustad, who narrowly lost the provincial election, is calling for an independent review of Elections BC after multiple reports in the past forty-eight hours of unaccounted-for ballots, one of which could flip a riding from the NDP to his party.
David Eby (left)
The latest announcement from Elections BC contradicts their initial statement, making the situation an unmitigated debacle. Elections BC is already under intense scrutiny for allowing election workers to take unaccounted-for ballots to their personal homes.
On Monday, Elections BC announced that they found a ballot box containing 861 votes that was not counted in the Prince George-Mackenzie riding. This did not affect the final result in that riding, which was won by Conservative Kiel Giddens by a couple thousand votes.
They also said that 14 votes went unreported due to “human error” in the crucial Surrey-Guildford riding, which the NDP’s Garry Begg narrowly won by 27 votes.
However on Tuesday, BC elections has issued another update, saying it’s actually 28 votes that are unaccounted for.
After hearing of Sunday’s announcement, BC Conservative leader John Rustad called for an independent review of the debacle, not one conducted by Elections BC.
“This is an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections,” he said.
Rustad also said at the time that he was not contesting the results of the election.
More than one week after the election, Elections BC finally announced that the NDP won 47 ridings, the BC Conservatives 44, and the BC Greens 2.
However, if the Conservatives were to flip one of the ridings, giving the NDP 46 seats, they would no longer hold absolute control over British Columbia’s government. In other words, the BC NDP would require votes from the Greens or Conservatives to pass legislation.
Recounts ongoing
As per the Election Act, Elections BC is conducting a recount in two ridings that had extremely small margins of victory.
Kelowna Centre was narrowly won by the BC Conservatives’ candidate, Kristina Loewen, while Surrey-Guildford was won by the NDP.
Last month, Elections BC admitted that they allow election workers to take home uncounted ballots to their personal homes, sparking outrage from many social media users online.
“How is this not a massive security risk?” asked True North journalist, Cosmin Dzsurdzsa.
