Ballots cast on election day in B.C. will be counted by hand, Elections BC says

VANCOUVER — It’s the last full day of campaigning in British Columbia’s election ahead of final voting day Saturday, when most ballots will be counted by hand.

Elections BC has confirmed that votes cast on election day will be tallied manually, in a departure from 2024, when electronic tabulators were used to count paper ballots for the first time in a general election.

That was hailed as a success in Elections BC’s report on the polls, but the agency says in a statement that it’s going back to a manual count due to “short time frames and complex operational logistics of a snap election.”

It says paper ballots cast at advance polling stations and at district electoral offices will be counted with electronic tabulators, and it expects those results to be reported first.

Elections BC also says the election-night count will not include absentee or main-in ballots, which will be tallied at the final count scheduled Nov. 6 to Nov. 10.

Advance voting numbers released Thursday were down more than 11 per cent compared to 2024, bucking a two-decade upward trend.

There were more than 891,000 advance votes cast from Friday to Wednesday, representing about 24 per cent of all registered voters.

That compares to more than one million advance votes cast in 2024, when numbers spiked 49 per cent over the previous election.

Elections BC’s report on the 2024 election says electronic tabulation allowed the first preliminary results to be reported within five minutes of polls closing, and 59 per cent of preliminary results to reported within half an hour.

“In past elections first results typically started to be reported around 45 minutes after polls closed,” it said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.

The Canadian Press