B.C. election at a glance: Hand count for most votes due to snap call’s ‘logistics’

Friday is the last full day of campaigning in British Columbia’s election ahead of final voting day Saturday.

Here’s a look at some of the latest developments on the campaign trail.

HAND COUNT FOR MOST BALLOTS

Elections BC has confirmed that votes cast on election day will be tallied manually, in a departure from 2024, when electronic tabulators were used to count paper ballots for the first time in a general election.

Elections BC spokesperson Colleen Hildebrandt says the decision to go with a hybrid model, where advance votes are counted with a tabulator and votes on election day are counted by hand, was made as soon as the snap election was called two years early because of the tight timeline.

About 600 tabulators were used for advance voting across just over 300 locations she said, but scaling up for election day would have required between 2,500 and 3,000 machines deployed across 1,200 voting locations.

Each machine has technical requirements, including testing, verifying for accuracy as well as training staff to use them, she said.

“So, the time it takes to actually get … that to happen, it requires a lot of training and materials and shipping of supplies and testing that and making sure everything is ready to go. And to do that across 1,200 locations is quite complex.”

Elections BC’s annual report lists technology procurement as something that is typically done 12 months ahead of a scheduled election.

When a snap election was called in 2020, Elections BC used the same type of model, Hildebrandt said.

Votes counted with electronic tabulators are expected to be the first results reported after voting closes at 8 p.m.

Elections BC also says the election-night count will not include absentee or mail-in ballots, which will be tallied at the final count scheduled for Nov. 6 to Nov. 10.

Elections BC’s report on the 2024 election says electronic tabulation allowed the first preliminary results to be reported within five minutes of polls closing, and 59 per cent of preliminary results to reported within half an hour.

It said that in past elections first results typically started to be reported around 45 minutes after polls closed.

DOERKSON RALLIES WITH CLARK AND MCCALLUM

The B.C. Conservatives held a rally in Surrey on Thursday night, with mayor-elect Doug McCallum endorsing Lorne Doerkson as the province’s next premier.

Also present at the rally were former B.C. premier Christy Clark, and former Surrey mayors Linda Hepner and Dianne Watts.

McCallum told the rally that he was standing with people who had changed Surrey and it was time to change B.C.

The 82-year-old McCallum is about to embark on his third separate stint as Surrey’s mayor, after defeating incumbent Brenda Locke in the Oct. 17 municipal elections.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.