There is still no clear winner in British Columbia’s 2024 election after counting resumed Saturday, according to Elections BC.

The tally of absentee and mail-in ballots widened the BC NDP’s lead in two ridings and helped narrow the gap between it and the Conservatives in a third, but the result for ridings n is not yet known.

Before counting resumed Saturday, the BC NDP was leading or elected with 46 seats, the BC Conservatives with 45 seats and the BC Greens with two seats. In the British Columbia Legislative Assembly, 47 seats are needed to form a majority government.

Elections BC released updated election results Saturday at 1 p.m., with another update expected later today.

Before Saturday’s results update, CBC News had not predicted the outcome for 11 ridings, with the NDP leading in six of them and the Conservatives in five.

No precincts were flipped due to updated results. However, CBC News predicts that the NDP will win the riding of Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, a riding in which the party was already in the lead.

The NDP’s lead over the BC Conservatives in the riding of Juan de Fuca-Malahat grew to 106 votes from the previous 20 votes, with about 229 special ballots left to count.

The NDP’s lead in the downtown Surrey riding increased to 162 votes from 93. There are approximately 208 special ballots remaining to be counted in the riding.

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In addition to the NDP’s growing lead in these ridings, the party moved to within 14 votes of the Conservatives in Surrey-Guildford, with the Conservatives previously leading there by 103 votes before Saturday.

Although more updated results are expected later Saturday, the full results will not be made official until after two recounts on Sunday and Monday.

These will be the ridings of Juan de Fuca-Malahat and downtown Surrey, where the NDP margin of lead was less than 100 votes in both cases.

A week-long cliffhanger

As election night ended on October 19, British Columbians still didn’t know who their government was, with the count not expected to be made official until this weekend.

In fact, Elections BC had to count approximately 65,000 absentee and absentee ballots sent after the close of advance voting and were mandated by law wait until Saturday to start doing it.

While results from most precincts this weekend will be tallied using electronic tabulators, recounts in the Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Center precincts will be done manually.

Any precinct where the margin of victory is 100 votes or less is subject to an automatic recount. Parties can also request a recount in neighboring districts.

In response to a question from CBC News about whether Surrey-Guildford – where the Conservative lead narrowed to less than 100 votes – would also see a recount, Elections BC said it would know the answer on Monday .

“Once the final count is completed on October 28, we will be able to confirm whether a district will be subject to an automatic judicial recount,” spokesman Andrew Watson said in an email.

“If the difference between the top two candidates at the end of the final count is less than 1/500th of the total ballots considered, there will be an automatic judicial recount in that district.”