Thousands of mail-in ballots have yet to be counted in the BC election, giving hope to the Conservatives, who currently sit two seats shy of a majority and one seat behind the NDP.While only the final count can tell for certain how the 49,000 new votes will change the race, polling data has suggested that those who use that method lean right.According to a poll conducted by Mainstreet Research on October 18, right before Election Day, Conservative voters were by far the most likely to have cast their ballots via the postal system.Among the 2064 respondents, 469 voted by mail. Of those, 47.2% expressed their intention to support for the Conservatives, while just 38.8% said they would side with the NDP.That being said, those in rural and remote communities have historically been most likely to vote by mail, and the Conservatives have already secured victory in most of the parts of the province that fall into such categories. Most of the ridings where margins are slim enough to be shifted by mail-in votes are in or around urban centres..BC ELECTION: Recounts ordered in two ridings where NDP beat Conservatives by less than 100 votes.The two ridings where the NDP have the slimmest lead over the Conservatives are Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre. In the former, NDP candidate Dana Lajeunesse came out just 23 votes ahead of the Conservatives' Marina Sapozhnikov, while in the latter NDP candidate Amna Shah bested the Conservatives' Zeeshan Wahla by 96 votes.If the Conservatives can flip those two ridings and keep the other 91 the same, they will finish with 47 seats, the number needed for a majority. It all comes down to the final count, set to take place between October 26 and 28. On top of the counting of mail-in ballots, BC Elections has ordered manual recounts in the two aforementioned ridings, which could also change the outcome were there any sizeable errors during electronic tabulation..Conservative leader John Rustad told candidates, staff, volunteers, and supporters at his party's Election Night watch party that he was still optimistic."We have not given up this fight yet," he declared.In his post-Election Night statement, NDP leader David Eby noted that while his party got the most votes and won the most seats, British Columbians' hunger for change was impossible to ignore."I hear you and the serious message you have sent," he told those who voted for other parties. "We have not done enough and we must do better."
