What comes next? A primer on

Absentee ballots and judicial recounts to decide whether province ends up in minority or majority situation

Christy Clark remains B.C. premier until all votes counted Absentee ballots still to come, final count to take place between May 22 and 24

B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark waves to the crowd following the B.C. election in Vancouver early on Wednesday, May 10, 2017. A day after a historic election that ended with B.C.’s first minority government since 1953, Christy Clark confirmed she would remain premier until at least the final count of ballots by Elections BC. In a news conference, Clark confirmed that British Columbia Lt.Gov. Judith Guichon asked her to stay on as premier. Clark also appeared to be doing her best to woo the Green Party supporters and its three members of the legislature, including leader Andrew Weaver. “We have a lot in common,” she said. “I’ve worked with Dr. Weaver in the past and he’s a smart and thoughtful guy.” Clark also deflected questions about her role in the Liberal Party’s loss of seats. “Whether it’s a majority or minority government that I lead, we are going to work hard with other parties … and accept the message from the vot- ers who clearly want us to do things differently.” With all non-absentee ballots counted, Liberals were elected in 43 of B.C.’s 87 electoral districts, one short of the 44 seats needed to form a majority. There were approximately 51,000 absentee ballots in the 2013 election, and Elections BC will make its final count of this year’s ballots between May 22 and 24. The NDP leads in one riding, Courtenay-Comox, by just nine votes over the Liberals. Should the Liberals win that seat, the party would have a majority — but if the seat stays with the NDP, the New Democrats and Green Party could hypothetically form a coalition or governing arrangement that would make NDP Leader John Horgan the premier. “The final election results are reported after the conclusion of final count,” said Watson.

How might that final count play out?

Elections BC doesn’t know yet how many absentee votes are to be counted in Courtenay-Comox, where NDP candidate Ronna-Rae Leonard has been declared winner — by a very narrow margin. Courtenay-Comox heading to recount with 9-vote spread There were 1,856 of them in Comox Valley in 2013, when the NDP re- ceived 780 to 712 for the Liberals. However, this time the Liberal candidate is Jim Benninger, the former Base Commander of CFB Comox. It stands to reason that many of those absentee votes will come from Benninger’s former co-workers who were on assignment during the campaign.

Judicial recounts

But even the final count, with absentee ballots included, may not mean the end of the election. If the results in a given riding are within 0.2 per cent, a recount is automatically triggered. That’s because there could easily be recounts in Courtenay-Comox — but also in Maple Ridge Mission, where the NDP are ahead by 120 votes, or Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, where the Liberals are ahead by 170. “It’s possible for a recount of ballots considered at initial count. That can be a full or partial recount. Candidates and official agents can request for that to happen,” said Watson, who added that any requests needed to happen within three days of general voting days. “For a judicial recount, it needs to be recounted after final count, where the difference between the first two candidates is less than 1/500th between the total ballots considered.” And that could take several more days.

Political negotiations

While all of this is going on, B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark and NDP Leader John Horgan will negotiate with Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver on possible power-sharing scenarios. In fact, they already have. “At this stage, we don’t want to comment on anything. There’s going to be a lot of decisions to come in the days and weeks ahead,” said Matt Toner, the deputy Green Party leader, on Tuesday night. In fact, Green Party sources said Weaver had short and cordial conversations with both Clark and Horgan after a minority situation appeared likely, and told he’d be willing to work with them — though Weaver has said that the one issue anyone would have to agree to would be the abolition of corporate and union donations. Minority report: What happens if no B.C. party forms a majority election night? “Without any question. That’s a deal breaker. We’ve got to get this money out of politics,” said Weaver last week.