By CKPG Today

Politics

Elections BC orders recount for Prince George-Mackenzie riding

Nov 4, 2024 | 1:36 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — Though it won’t affect the final result, Elections BC has ordered a recount of one ballot box in the Prince George-Mackenzie riding.

In a statement released Monday, Elections BC says that it is applying for the recount after discovering that votes from that ballot box were not counted or reported on election night (October 19, 2024).

The ballot box contains approximately 861 votes – a riding Conservative candidate Kiel Giddens won after garnering 10,762 votes, or 60.79 per cent of the vote. The closest challenger was the NDP’s Shar McCrory who picked up 5,020 votes, or 28.36 per cent of the vote.

The Chief Electoral Officer has also issued an order to correct several errors in results reporting at final count. Election officials in five electoral districts erred by not reporting out-of-district results that had been recorded on 11 tabulator tapes (part of the ballot account). These errors were discovered during preparations for the judicial recounts in Kelowna Centre (KEC) and Surrey-Guildford (SRG) and were the result of human error. None of these results reporting omissions affect the outcome of any electoral district contest.

All parties and candidates affected by these omissions have been notified and informed of the measures being taken to address them.

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“Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province. Unfortunately, unintentional human errors do occur in administering the vote. The use of Chief Electoral Officer Orders and the judicial recount process enables such errors to be corrected,” says Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman.

Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad says that while he isn’t disputing the final outcome pending remaining judicial recounts, he says “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”

As a result, Rustad is calling for an independent review “to ensure that these types of mistakes never happen again. Democracy is too sacred to allow trust to erode to the lows we see today.”