The NDP is still on track to flip Surrey-Guildford from Tory blue to NDP orange. But the NDP now seems unlikely to overtake the Conservatives in Kelowna Centre.
That would give the NDP a technical majority of 47 seats (up from 46) but not the 48 seats they'd need to appoint a speaker and confidently govern without the two Greens.
As of Election BC's 4pm update on Oct. 26, the Conservative margin of victory in Surrey-Guildford has narrowed just slightly from 14 votes to 12. But the NDP is winning the late-counted votes by a large enough margin (22 points) they should pull ahead.
In contrast, while the NDP is narrowing the gap in Kelowna Centre, they're not narrowing it by enough to make it likely they'll take the seat. With 72% of the remaining votes now counted, the NDP is winning the late-counted votes by a margin of 12.8 percentage points — when they need to be winning those votes by 18.2 points.
Based on the votes counted so far, an NDP flip in Surrey-Guildford looks very likely — and a flip anywhere else quite unlikely. But there is still one big unknown as we enter the final stretch of vote counting: Absentee ballots.
The Google Spreadsheet I've created indicates whether a seat is on track to flip or not. But implicit in that is an assumption that the late votes remaining to be counted will look like the late votes already counted. And they may not.
According to Elections BC, mail-in ballots will be counted on Saturday and Sunday but absentee ballots won't be counted in any riding until Monday.
Elections BC defines to the two buckets of vote like so:
Category 1 (Mail-in Ballots and Assisted Ballots): "Includes assisted telephone votes, mail-in ballots received by mail after the close of advance voting, and mail-in ballots returned to a Service BC location. Counted at a secure Elections BC facility in Victoria."
Category 2 (Special and Absentee Ballots): "Includes special ballots, absentee ballots cast at partial-tech and non-tech voting places, and mail-in ballots dropped off at a district electoral office or voting place. Counted at district electoral offices where received."
Making things even more brain-bending, neither of these categories is anything like it has been in previous elections.
As discussed in a previous post, Elections BC used to wait to count all mail-in ballots until after election night. Now mail-in ballots received before the last day of advance voting are counted early and included in the election-night count.
But absentee votes are also a lot different this year. In past elections, when someone voted outside their own district, their ballot was held for counting later, because Elections BC had to make sure the person hadn't already voted. Now, with online voter rolls, most absentee ballots can be counted on election night.
That leaves a small number of absentee ballots in places like "partial-tech and non-tech voting places" — in short, remote locations with spotty Internet service, where the election workers weren't able to check someone off the master online voters list. As I understand it, there are also 'special' voting places like hospitals that could be included in the votes counted on Monday.
We know from past elections that absentee ballots usually favour the NDP. For example, university students often vote outside of their own district and they tend to be left-leaning. But someone who voted absentee at UBC probably had their vote counted on election night. Will this year's absentee ballots break the same way?
Are people who travel to remote areas of B.C. — which could include people like resource workers — more likely to vote NDP or Conservative? What about those in hospital or a long-term care facility?
If I had to guess, I would imagine that absentee ballots will probably skew NDP — but perhaps not by the huge margins we've seen in some of the mail-in ballots.
That said, with only 12 votes separating the NDP and Conservatives in Surrey-Guildford, the NDP wouldn't have to win the absentee ballots by much to close the distance.
Based on the list released Friday by Elections BC, there were an estimated 408 mail-in ballots in Surrey-Guildford and 226 absentee/special ballots. To close their 12-vote deficit, that would mean the NDP would need to win the absentee/special ballots in that riding by a margin of 5.8 percentage points. That's nothing compared to the 22-point margin they won this year's late mail-in ballots by. But it's more than their usual advantage in absentee ballots in past elections.
Monday should be interesting!
(Click on a chart to make it larger.)
Thank you for the interesting analysis. You mentioned "That's nothing compared to the 22-point margin they won this year's late mail-in ballots by. But it's more than their usual advantage in absentee ballots in past elections.". What's NDP's absentee ballots advantage in past elections?
ReplyDeleteThe chart right below that statement basically shows the advantage. Technically it shows absentee plus mail-in but prior to 2020, the vast majority of these votes were absentee votes. There weren't that many mail-in ballots prior to 2020.
DeleteI dug through all the datas from the sheet, parsing out the absentees+specials. In 2017, absentee ballots favored NDP 46% vs Libs 35% (Total vote was NDP 40% vs Libs 40%).
DeleteIn 2020, absentee ballots favored NDP 43% vs Libs+Cons 39% (Total vote was NDP 48% vs Libs+Cons 36%).
It seems the absentee ballot bias has shifted away from NDP over time, as more options became available. I would predict a very close to even split in these remaining ballots. It's probably pretty close to a coinflip now whether CP keep Surrey-Guildford.