The race for Kelowna Centre is so close, again, it’s going to a judicial recount.

Everyone seems to understand that, just like in 2024, the winner will be declared by a judge but what actually happens in a judicial recount isn’t often explained. Here’s how it physically works.

Elections BC does the regular counts, by hand and/or with a tabulator machine, and if the difference in the votes is less than 0.2 per cent, or 1/500 of the total ballots considered, then the Supreme Court has to do a recount.

In Kelowna Centre, BC NDP’s Loyal Wooldridge received 11,646 votes, 47.84 per cent, and BC Conservative Kristina Loewen received 11,689 votes, 48.01 per cent, which means it triggered an automatic recount.

Once that count is done the District Electoral Officer has to apply for a judicial recount. The officer also has to notify the candidates in the election that they applied for the judicial recount.

A Supreme Court justice then decides how they want to do the recount, either by hand or with a tabulator machine or both. The justice then might publish a court document detailing the process, like Justice Kevin Loo for the Surrey-Guildford recount in 2024.

Justice Allison Beames did the Kelowna Centre recount in 2024, but there’s no publicly available document online explaining what she decided to do or her method. Similarly, Elections BC didn’t share the details of how the 2026 Kelowna Centre recount is going to happen.

In 2024 the Surrey-Guildford recount happened at the electoral district office and Justice Loo oversaw the recount but didn’t directly participate in the counting process. Members of the media were invited along with candidates and scrutineers from the BC Conservatives and BC NDP.

An Elections BC official would pull a ballot out of the ballot box, show it to the scrutineers and announce who the ballot was cast for. The scrutineers and election officials were allowed to contest whether a ballot was valid, which only happened twice.

Both contested ballots were rejected because they were filled in for multiple candidates. The outcome of the election was the same following the recount, but the final results were slightly different because 28 votes had been missed by Elections BC in the final count.

“The fundamental purpose of a judicial recount is to provide a transparent, impartial, and reviewable count of the vote, which instills the public with definitive confidence in the integrity of the electoral result,” Loo wrote in his decision.

A judicial recount has to happen between seven and 15 days after the declaration of the official election results on Nov. 10. The justice has to tell the election officer when the recount is happening within 72 hours of the recount application.

The justice has a lot of control over the procedures. The justice can do the recount in court chambers, at the electoral office or anywhere else they decide.

Some people are entitled to be there for a judicial recount like the district electoral officer, chief electoral officer, candidates in the election and a scrutineer for each candidate. The justice can also allow anyone else to see the recount if they choose to.

Once everyone is in the room the justice recounts the ballots, but they can bring people in to help with the recount.

After the recount is done candidates are allowed to appeal it, at which point the case would go to the Court of Appeal.

If no one appeals, the results of the recount are given to the district electoral officer and certified.

This was the same process Loewen and Wooldridge went through in 2024 when Loewen won by 40 votes, and the recount didn’t change the results.

“Well, it’s a wrap! The final count is done, I won by 43 votes this time. (Up from 40 last time around). So a judicial recount will be ordered but, last time, it changed nothing at all. I feel confident that that will hold once again,” Loewen wrote on social media after the Elections BC final count was announced on the weekend.

Wooldridge said he doesn’t see a transparency issue with a justice’s power to choose how they do the recount.

“I have full confidence in our electoral system and the workers that work within it. So a judicial recount, from my perspective, is really about confirming the results that have been brought forward,” he said. “All parties and candidates have been invited to bring scrutineers to oversee the process. So I have no concerns regarding transparency or the process itself.”