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UPDATE: 4.30 p.m.: NDP have won Courtenay-Comox in final vote count
Elections BC have confirmed that the NDP have won the riding of Courtenay-Comox with 10,886 votes to the Liberals 10,697.
At the conclusion of final count the election results were as follows:
BC Liberal Party: 43
BC NDP: 41
BC Green Party: 3
The BC Greens now hold the balance of power and will have to decide whether to go into coalition with the NDP or the Liberals. If they refrain from teaming up with either party, there will be a hung parliament in the B.C. Legislature.
More details to follow.
UPDATE: 2.00 p.m.: Results remain the same since 12.00 p.m. update
Elections BC updated the results from the Courtenay-Comox riding at 2.00 p.m. but the results remain unchanged.
As it stands, New Democrat Ronna-Rae Leonard still leads Liberal Jim Benninger 10,618 votes to 10,470.
The next results update is scheduled to be released at 5.00 p.m.
This page will update as soon as new information becomes available.
To find out more about the significance of this riding and the 2017 B.C. Election, read below.
UPDATE: 12.00 p.m.: NDP extend lead even further over the Liberals
This will be disappointing news for the B.C. Liberals, as the latest updates reveal Leonard to have extended her lead over Benninger by 148 votes (up from 101 at 10.00 a.m.)
Currently, the New Democrat leads in the riding with 10,618 votes to the Liberals 10,470.
However, with less than 150 votes between them and with more absentee ballots to be counted, this race is far from over.
That being said, this still spells bad news for the Liberals who would have been hoping the absentee ballots to put Benninger ahead by now.
If this lead is maintained, the Liberals will still be one seat shy of securing a majority government, leaving the B.C. Greens with the balance of power.
UPDATE: 10.00 a.m.: NDP maintaining narrow lead over Liberals by 101 votes
New Democrat Ronna-Rae Leonard is leading Liberal Jim Benninger by 101 votes (10,481 to 10,380).
It's still expected that up to 1000 absentee ballots still need to be counted.
Original post: 9.55 a.m.: Where we left off after May 9th
On May 9th, Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberals secured 43 seats, followed by John Horgan’s New Democrats with 41 seats and Andrew Weaver’s Green Party with three.
The B.C. Liberals finished after voting day just one seat shy of securing a majority government. However, that could all change today depending on the results of the absentee ballots in the riding of Courtenay-Comox.
The Courtenay-Comox race, which may go down as one of the closest in provincial history, saw New Democrat Ronna-Rae Leonard narrowly defeat the Liberal candidate Jim Benninger by just 9 votes (10,058 to 10,049).
However, will this riding remain orange by the end of the day or will it turn red with the counting of the absentee ballots?
In total, Elections BC reported that they received roughly 2,2080 absentee ballots for the Courtenay-Comox riding. As of this morning, it was considered that almost half of those ballots had been counted.
Elections BC told KelownaNow that they will be updating their results at noon, 2.00 p.m. and 5.00 p.m.
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