Multiple polls show Conservatives leading as voters decide today who’ll lead British Columbia

BRITISH COLUMBIA – Main Street Research and other major polling outlets all show the B.C. Conservatives leading in today’s provincial election.

According to Main Street Research’s last and final snapshot, the B.C. Conservatives lead with 42.9 per cent of the vote, outpacing the BC NDP who have 37.2 per cent, followed by the Greens with a polling percentage of 17 per cent.

In a statement from the polling agency, Main Street Research suggests OneBC, headed up by Dallas Brodie, and Centre BC, led by Elenore Sturko, will not play a meaningful role in the election overall, but could be a factor in a handful of ridings. Main Street Research suggests they have 1.8 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively.

Other polls released in the past 24 hours suggest similar findings. Pallas Data, which claimed to have the most accurate polling in the 2024 B.C. provincial election and had an A+ rating from 338 Canada, said the B.C. Conservatives have 45 per cent as of Thursday, followed by the NDP with 39 per cent, and the Greens with 12 per cent.

Pallas Data polling. (Image Credit: Pallas Data.)

New Forum Research has the Conservatives leading with 44.5 per cent of the vote ahead of the NDP (39.5 per cent) and the Greens (12 per cent).

Research Co. shows the opposition Conservatives leading with 44 per cent, followed by the governing NDP with 40 per cent, and the BC Green Party with 10 per cent, followed by OneBC and CentreBC with 2 per cent each.

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.

Elections BC spokesperson Colleen Hildebrandt told The Canadian Press that the decision to go with a hybrid model, where advance votes are counted with a tabulator and votes on election day are counted by hand, was made as soon as the snap election was called two years early because of the tight timeline.

About 600 tabulators were used for advance voting across just over 300 locations she said, but scaling up for election day would have required between 2,500 and 3,000 machines deployed across 1,200 voting locations.

Each machine has technical requirements, including testing, verifying for accuracy as well as training staff to use them, she said.

“So, the time it takes to actually get … that to happen, it requires a lot of training and materials and shipping of supplies and testing that and making sure everything is ready to go. And to do that across 1,200 locations is quite complex.”

Elections BC’s annual report lists technology procurement as something that is typically done 12 months ahead of a scheduled election.

When a snap election was called in 2020, Elections BC used the same type of model, Hildebrandt said.

Votes counted with electronic tabulators are expected to be the first results reported after voting closes at 8 p.m.

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

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.