Three votes and a ballot box

Plans for Kelowna Centre’s Nov. 7 and 8 judicial recount are taking shape, while details about an election-night error have become more clear.

In a Monday morning hearing, BC Supreme Court Justice Alison Beames was told about a voting anomaly that became known at around 2 p.m. Oct. 30, by Elections B.C.

The organization spotted a data entry error, where 14 votes were counted but not entered into the voting system. A subsequent review that carried on until Nov. 3, found that 11 tabulator tapes from voting locations in five different electoral districts incompletely reported votes from those who cast a ballot outside their own electoral district. Through that process 780 votes had been counted but not reported were found.

Of all those votes found, only three impact the Kelowna Centre area, Beames was told. Those three votes will be returned to Kelowna in time for the judicial recount.

The Chief Electoral Officer issued a statement later in the day about the bungle, saying these errors were the result of human error and will not effect the election outcome.

"In both cases, the unreported votes represent less than 0.08 per cent of all results reported," the statement read.

Although the omissions affected results reporting in 69 electoral districts, the number of unreported votes per district was small and did not affect the outcome in those districts, or any requirements for judicial recounts.

During the review another issue was discovered. Elections BC determined that a single ballot box in Prince George-Mackenzie had not been counted and reported at initial count.

The Chief Electoral Officer said the box contained approximately 861 votes, seven of which were out-of-district ballots.

"We are making application for a judicial recount for this ballot box to ensure that these ballots can be counted and added to the already reported votes in the districts," the electoral officer said.

"As previously stated, the addition of these results will not affect the outcome of the election in that district, or in the judicial recount districts."

As for the Kelowna recount, Beames was also told that the location of the recount was being firmed up and details would be revealed later in the week. Conditions for accredited media attending are also being discussed now.

In addition to Kelowna Centre, the Surrey-Guildford riding will also see a recount take place on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8.

Both ridings saw the margin of victory within the threshold to trigger judicial recounts after the final tally of mail-in and absentee ballots from the Oct. 19 election.

The NDP candidate is leading his Conservative opponent by 27 votes in Surrey-Guildford, while the margin between the Conservative candidate in Kelowna Centre over her NDP opponent is 38 votes.

Surrey Guildford was the only riding where the winner changed during the final ballot count, giving Premier David Eby’s NDP party the narrow majority of 47 seats.