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When vote counting resumed Saturday, the NDP increased its lead in two key races and closed to within 12 votes of the BC Conservatives in a third.

No leads have changed in nine races too close to call, and B.C.’s election update shows the prospect of an NDP government.

The NDP now leads in Juan de Fuca-Malahat by 106 votes, to 23, while the party’s candidate leads in downtown Surrey by 178 votes.

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The downtown Surrey voters Postmedia spoke with, about three dozen of them, expressed apathy toward the recount in their riding.

At the Surrey Central SkyTrain station, in front of a large poster of Conservative candidate Zeeshan Wahla, Amandeep Grewal said: “We’re busy, we’re studying, we don’t have time for these things.”

A woman ordering a plate of tikka channa from a Pink Tiger food truck at the Red FM Diwali Dhamaka at Surrey Civic Plaza said, over the speakers blasting DJ Klassi’s music on stage: “Listen, people are don’t care unless Justin Trudeau is missing.”

Jay McGuinty, whose wife is seven months pregnant, said the recount doesn’t matter to them.

“I don’t think it’s going to make a difference one way or the other,” he said. “What would make a difference to us is if we could afford a house here, but that’s not going to happen. We are moving to Calgary.

Because the results are unofficial, there is no official turnout, but the 10 ridings in Surrey and White Rock average about 36,000 voters, and there were only slightly more of 14,000 votes cast in downtown Surrey.

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The constituency is new, made up of parts of Whalley, Green Timbers and Guildford.

The Conservatives had hoped to overturn the NDP’s lead in that riding and in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, the two closest races after the initial count ended last Sunday, but instead the current tally of mail-in votes has allowed the NDP to take the advantage.

The NDP now leads in Juan de Fuca-Malahat by 106 votes to 23.

In Surrey Guildford, where the Conservatives held a 103-vote lead, the NDP gained 12 votes with 8,809 to the Conservatives’ 8,821.

At the end of the initial count after the October 19 election, neither the NDP nor the Conservatives obtained the 47 ridings needed to form a majority in the 93 seats.
legislature.

The NDP lead widened in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, but the margins changed little in other close races.

More than 43,000 postal ballots were expected to be counted in the province’s 93 ridings, in a process expected to conclude on Sunday.

The electoral authority will also conduct a full recount starting Sunday in the Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Center constituencies as their margins after the initial count were less than 100.

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There will also be a partial hand recount in Kelowna Center due to a transcription error involving a tabulator used in the riding.

The final tally will then be completed on Monday with the counting of more than 22,000 mail-in ballots, with results updated hourly on the Election BC website that day.

But even after that, a judicial recount could be requested by a candidate if the margin in their district is less than 1/500th of all votes counted.

With files from The Canadian Press

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