Liberal Stephen Fuhr has small lead as vote count resumes in Kelowna riding

Poll workers have resumed counting votes again in the Kelowna riding with Liberal Stephen Fuhr sitting on a narrow lead.

It looks like Fuhr has unseated incumbent Conservative Tracy Gray in their rematch of the 2019 election. Fuhr is ahead by 170 votes but there is one more voting station to count.

“Counting has resumed. Some Elections Canada employees were at it until almost daybreak, so some rest was warranted. We expect more decisive results will be available today,” Elections Canada spokesperson James Hale told iNFOnews.ca in an email. “We’re holding fire on this right now. No more to say as teams are working very quickly right now.”

It’s a waiting game to see if Fuhr’s lead will hold and make Kelowna a lonely red riding surrounded by Conservative strongholds.

The race may not be close enough for a judicial recount. A judicial recount is automatically triggered if the difference in votes is 0.1 per cent of the total votes cast. according to the non-partisan agency responsible for administering Canadian elections. Since Kelowna saw 54,626 votes cast, the lead would have to shrink to 54 votes to cause a recount.

Technically any elector, including candidates, can request a recount within four days of the validation of the results if they think something has gone wrong like the count wasn’t carried out properly, ballots were improperly rejected, if they statement of the vote is wrong or the election officer didn’t add the votes up correctly.