What can we expect from the final count of absentee ballots in B.C. on Monday?

I took a bit of a break from number crunching today (Sunday), since while there was a lot of counting of mail-in ballots taking place, the mail-in ballots in the closest ridings were completed Saturday afternoon. Still, there were a couple of quick things I wanted to take a look at before the weekend was over:

1. Just how well did the BC NDP do in late mail-in ballots this year compared to previous years?
   
   
2. Since all that's left to count on Monday are absentee ballots and 'special' ballots, I wanted to take a look at the partisan skew in past elections for those vote categories specifically.

So first, how well did the BC NDP do in the mail-in ballots counted late this year? In short: Very, very well. Better, even, than the 2020 pandemic election which was seen as an outlier both for the share of voters who voted by mail (30%) and the partisan skew of mail-in ballots.

A reminder: You can click on any chart to make it bigger.

I wasn't surprised the NDP did better in late-counted mail-in ballots than in the election-night count — after all, the NDP has done better in mail-in votes in every election going back to 2005. But I was surprised at just how well they did. In my original post on Tuesday, I thought it was unlikely the NDP would pick up enough votes to flip any of the Conservative seats and said their "one (small) glimmer of hope" was that 2020 made more people comfortable with mail-in voting and that more of those people were NDP supporters. That could explain the NDP matching its 2020 advantage in 2024. But how did it do even better than that — basically putting up numbers 10 percentage points higher than they did on election night? I suspect the key difference may be that this year we're dealing only with mail-in ballots that arrived late — after the final day of advance voting — whereas in past elections all mail-in ballots were held until the final count. Maybe procrastinators vote NDP?

Now, going into Monday, all eyes will be on Surrey-Guildford, where the Conservatives have a mere 12 vote lead over the BC NDP but where my Google Spreadsheet calculations suggest that (so far) the NDP is on track to pull ahead and win the seat in the final count.

But these calculations are based on the assumption that the absentee and "special" ballots (like hospitals) counted Monday will break for the NDP the same way that the late mail-in ballots did. And, especially given just how well the NDP did in the late mail-in ballots, that seems unlikely.

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 that 12-vote deficit, that would mean the NDP would need to win the absentee/special ballots in Surrey-Guildford by a margin of 5.8 percentage points over the Conservatives.

How have the NDP done in those two vote categories in the past? Let's take a look.

Generally speaking, the NDP has done better in both absentee and special ballots than it has in the election-night count while the right-of centre BC Liberals have done worse. But the margins have been pretty small — certainly nothing like the 10-percentage-point boost the NDP saw this year in late counted mail-in ballots. Even more peculiar, in the 2020 election the NDP's share of the absentee vote was lower than it was in the election night count. (Though the Liberal vote share was lower too, more on why at the end of this post.)

I've included the actual vote totals in the chart above for added context. In past elections, absentee ballots were a much larger share of the late-counted votes than special ballots. But that's unlikely to be the case this year, since new election technology meant most absentee ballots could be counted on election night. So special ballots may make up a larger share of the late counted votes. And even among absentee ballots, the type of absentee ballots counted late this year will be different than in past years precisely because we're talking about only those that could not be counted on election night — such as those in remote locations with spotty Internet service.

If I had to bet, I'd say the NDP will probably pick up just enough extra votes to overtake the Conservatives in Surrey-Guildford. But I think it will be incredibly tight and that the NDP's advantage in the votes counted Monday won't be nearly as dramatic as was in the late mail-in ballots.

But we'll soon see.

(Oct. 28, 10am Update: As I was reminded on Twitter, the votes counted today also includes "mail-in ballots dropped off at a district electoral office or voting place". I have no idea how many of those there are. But if there are a significant number, the NDP might do better in those extra mail-in ballots than in absentee or special ballots.)

(Oct. 27, 10pm Quick Update: From the start, I haven't paid much attention to the recounts, since my assumption was because the original counts were done by machine, it was unlikely the hand recounts would make much difference. So far, that seems to be the case. We got recounts from Surrey Centre and Kelowna Centre today and, in both cases, it looks like the final tally only moved by a couple of votes in either direction. I'm basing this on the count now and the version I had saved at 4pm yesterday on the Google Spreadsheet.)

(Eagle eyed readers may have noticed that the total size of the bar for both absentee and special ballots is smaller than the one on election night in every election. I purposely 'hid' the other parties to make the charts easier to read. But I was curious, too, why the combined NDP+Liberal+Green vote was lower in late-counted votes. Did some fringe party or Independent candidate do really well in late votes? As it turns out, that gap is actually due to there being a significantly higher share of rejected votes in absentee and special ballots than in the election-night count.)

(One other thing: If you're trying to get your head around how all the different ways to vote work, this guide from Elections BC is very helpful.)