The Green party’s Adam Olsen has held his seat as the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.
With 72 of 118 polls reported on Saturday night, Olsen was determined to be the winner with 4,893 votes (53 per cent), followed by the NDP’s Zeb King with 2,585 votes (28 per cent) and Liberal candidate Stephen P. Roberts earning 1,743 votes (19 per cent).
Province wide, the NDP earned a majority government. At 10 p.m., the NDP was leading or elected in 54 ridings, with 44 needed for a majority. The Liberals were leading or elected in 30 seats and the Greens had 3 seats.
Speaking on Saturday night, Olsen said that despite the Greens no longer holding the balance of power in the legislature, voters in his riding are sophisticated and know that the “legislature is made of up 87 independent representatives from their community elected to go do a job. A huge amount of work gets done in the constituency. That is what I am going to continue to build on.”
“There is a lot of productive work that gets done in the legislature and we are going to ensure we fulfil our role on the behalf of British Columbians,” he added.
Final vote tallies from the election will not be known until Nov. 16, according to Elections BC, due to the record number of mail-in ballots that cannot be counted until their validity is verified.
Some 470,000 mail-in ballots had been received by Elections BC as of Oct. 24. More than 700,000 mail-in ballot packages had been requested.
Ballots from advance polls were counted along with those cast today. More than 681,000 British Columbians voted in advance polls compared to 614,000 in the 2017 B.C. election.
In the 2017 B.C. election, Olsen won the riding over NDP incumbent Gary Holman with almost 42 per cent of the popular vote. Holman had 30.56 per cent and Roberts had 26.46 per cent.