After the first day of counting absentee and mail-in ballots, the gap between NDP’s Henry Yao and BC Liberals’ Alexa Loo hadn’t changed much, with the former in a slight lead.
At 6 p.m. Friday, the gap was 118 votes between the two Richmond South Centre candidates – on election night, with in-person and advance voting ballots tabulated, they were separated by 124 votes.
Currently, Yao continues to lead with 4,998 votes (50.6 per cent) to Loo’s 4,880 (49.4 per cent).
It would appear Elections BC officials counted 1,728 ballots on Friday out of an estimated 5,280 mail-in and absentee ballots that were sent in.
Loo is currently a Richmond city councillor.
In Richmond’s other three ridings, the projected winners continue to stay in the lead.
Kelly Greene, also a current Richmond city councillor, was projected to win the Richmond-Steveston riding for the NDP, beating BC Liberal candidate Matt Pitcairn. After Friday’s count, she was leading by 823 votes after almost 5,000 absentee and mail-in ballots were counted in that riding.
Teresa Wat, the BC Liberal incumbent MLA in Richmond North Centre, seemed to be holding a strong lead after almost 3,000 absentee and mail-in ballots were counted.
At 6 p.m. Friday, she had 6,100 votes, the NDP’s Jaeden Dela Torre had 4,711, and Green candidate Vernon Wang had 1,086.
In Richmond-Queensborough, the NDP’s Aman Singh was projected on election night to win the riding, beating incumbent BC Liberal MLA Jas Johal.
On Friday, he had picked up 339 votes whereas Johal had picked up 278 votes. However, it appears only 704 absentee and mail-in ballots had been counted by the end of Friday.
Elections BC estimated there were 6,309 absentee and mail-in ballots in Richmond-Queensborough.
On election night, the gap between Singh and Johal was 932 votes, whereas on Friday evening it had grown to 993.
Elections BC normally has three days to count ballots. (Because of the large number of mail-in ballots, it’s possible this time will be extended.)
Absentee ballots – of which there are different types – will be reported when each type is counted.
Mail-in ballot counts will be updated at 6 p.m. at the end of each day, unless the count is completed, whereby it will be reported earlier.
Stay tuned to Richmond-News.com for updates.
