While most BC electoral races were decided Saturday night, delays in some parts of the province mean British Columbians still don't know who will form the next government.
The tight race has the BC NDP leading in 46 ridings and the Conservative Party leading in 45, with the Green Party leading in two. A party must win 47 seats to claim a majority.
Elections BC issued a statement early Sunday, saying 99.72 per cent of preliminary results have been reported and counting was to continue for another hour before continuing later Sunday morning.
"Due to election official availability and weather-related disruptions we will not have complete preliminary results tonight for Cariboo-Chilcotin, Surrey-Newton and North Coast-Haida Gwaii," the statement read.
Sixteen electoral districts are still counting out-of-district ballots, which can take longer for a number of reasons, Elections BC states. "With B.C.’s vote anywhere model, some districts are reporting out-of-district results from dozens of other contests," it states. "Write-in ballots also take longer to count than ordinary ballots."
The closeness of the races in some ridings could mean recounts, which are automatic in electoral districts where the margin between the top two candidates is 100 votes or fewer at the conclusion of initial count. These recounts would take place during final count, scheduled for October 26 to 28.
Some types of ballots must be counted at final count and were not counted on election night, including vote-by-mail ballots received by mail after the close of advance voting or dropped off in person at a voting place or district electoral office.
Elections BC states it will report the number of ballots that will be considered at final count as soon as possible.
