Garry Begg beats Honveer Singh Randhawa by 27 votes in Surrey Guildford

INCUMBENT NDP MLA Garry Begg finally managed to edge out BC Conservatives’ Honveer Singh Randhawa by 27 votes in Surrey Guildford, thus giving the NDP a majority of seats.

Randhawa’s defeat means that now there will be only 14 South Asian MLAs: 10 NDP (four of them new) and four B.C. Conservative MLAs (all new).

According to the preliminary results that Elections BC had declared till midnight on Saturday, October 19, Randhawa had won 8,671 votes as compared to Begg’s 8,569 votes — a difference of 102 votes.

On Sunday evening, Begg had garnered 8,809 votes as compared to Randhawa’s 8,821 votes – a difference of 90 votes. An estimated 226 absentee and special votes remained to be counted.

On Monday morning, Begg was leading by 14 votes at one stage. That lead was reduced to 9 votes two hours later, but then increased to 18 votes.

At final count, the lead was 27 votes. Begg had won with 8,938 votes. Randhawa had garnered 8,911 votes.

Elections BC said the result in Surrey-Guildford electoral district is subject to automatic judicial recounts. Under the Election Act, judicial recounts must take place if, at the conclusion of final count, the difference between the top two candidates is less than 1/500th of the total ballots considered.

The threshold for a judicial recount is 38 votes in Surrey-Guildford. The difference between the top two candidates there is 27 votes.

Under section 139 of the Election Act, an application for a judicial recount must be made within six days of the conclusion of final count. The deadline for judicial recount applications is November 4. Applications are made to the Supreme Court of British Columbia and must be on the bases set out under section 139 of the Election Act.

A judicial recount is conducted by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and may include some or all of the ballots and certification envelopes for an election. The timing of the recount will be determined by the Court.