‘Bag of nerves’: Elections BC begins final count, with some ridings still in balance

It may be almost two weeks since British Columbia’s election resulted in a landslide win for the B.C. Conservatives, but it’s still a tense time for a handful of candidates.

New Democrat legislator Stephanie Higginson will be among those watching closely as the final count of mail-in and other ballots begins Friday.

“I feel like a bag of nerves,” Higginson said from her riding of Ladysmith-Oceanside, where the preliminary tally gave her a 13-vote lead over Conservative candidate Kris McNichol.

Elections BC said there are about 150,000 mail-in ballots to tally, in addition to absentee and assisted phone ballots that will be included in the final count.

It did not provide a breakdown of how many of those ballots are in each of B.C.’s 93 ridings.

But four ridings had leading margins of fewer than 200 votes.

Elections BC said Thursday that the uncounted ballots are contained in certification envelopes.

It said final results will be posted no later than Tuesday.

“Before being counted, certification envelopes are checked against the voters’ list to make sure the voter is eligible and that they only voted once. This process is important for election integrity,” it said.

Elections BC will conduct separate recounts in Ladysmith-Oceanside and Burnaby-South Metrotown because the current margin is fewer than 100 votes.

Burnaby-South Metrotown incumbent Paul Choi leads Conservative David Xie by 66 votes.

In Cowichan Valley and Kelowna Centre, Conservative candidates Bert Chen and Kristina Loewen hold leads of 151 votes and 132 votes respectively.

The final count won’t change the fact that the B.C. Conservatives led by Lorne Doerkson will take power with a huge majority, having won about two-thirds of the seats.

But the fate of candidates such as Higginson still hangs in the balance.

“I feel like at the end of this process, no matter what happens, for me personally I will have my family and my home and my health, and that’s a lot more than most people right now,” she said. “So I remain grateful for that.

“Having said that, I’m also not a very patient person, so this has been a personal growth opportunity, I’m calling it,” Higginson added with a laugh.

“It’s completely out of my control.”

Chen in Cowichan Valley took part in “MLA School” in Victoria this week, described by the B.C. Legislative Assembly as a way to prepare new legislators for their new responsibilities.

Chen said he will join his scrutineers in witnessing the final count in Duncan, B.C., but isn’t particularly nervous about the results.

“It really is just business as usual,” he said.

He said that attending MLA school and “just soaking up all the information” is “good general information to have, whether I do win a final count or not.”

Chen said he and his party trust the process.

“Elections BC is very confident in all of this,” he said.

“Of course, we understand that they had very compressed timelines (leading up to the election), so that’s why on the tail end, if you’re waiting for a (candidate) certification, it takes a bit longer. But we fully trust the process.”

Higginson said more seats for her Opposition party would allow it to better defend the NDP’s record in government.

“Democracy is messy, and this is one of those parts of it,” she said. “Elections are tough, and I have a deep understanding and respect for the work that Elections BC does, that our local elections officers are doing.”

“There isn’t really anything that can prepare you for this, but I am trying very hard to keep it all in perspective and remain grounded.”

— With files from Wolfgang Depner in Victoria.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2026.

Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press