Elections BC aiming for Nov. 16 to return final results

Huge numbers of mail-in ballots mean the results of tomorrow's BC election will be fuzzy at best and Elections B-C says even the announcement of the official, final result, normally available about three weeks later, could be delayed.

Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman says ballots from advance polls and general voting will be counted tomorrow night in what's called an initial count, but at least 480,000 mail-in ballots, and possibly more, will still need to be tallied during a final count.

That happens over what is usually a 13 day window following election day, but Boegman warns unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots could force an extension of that timeline, in turn delaying the roughly weeklong period set aside for judicial reviews, pushing announcement of the final result past the expected date of November 16th.

He also warns that because the total number of absentee and mail-in ballots from any district won't be confirmed until sometime next week, results from most ridings, and the overall result of the election, may not be clear tomorrow night.