Chilliwack-Kent 2020 provincial election candidates, clockwise from bottom left, Kelli Paddon (NDP), Eli Gagne (Libertarian), Jeff Hammersmark (Green), Jason Lum (Independent), and Laurie Throness (BC Liberal).

Chilliwack-Kent 2020 provincial election candidates, clockwise from bottom left, Kelli Paddon (NDP), Eli Gagne (Libertarian), Jeff Hammersmark (Green), Jason Lum (Independent), and Laurie Throness (BC Liberal).

B.C. VOTES 2020: Chilliwack-Kent race too close to call after 15,000 votes counted

Mail-in ballots will be counted on Nov. 6

  • Oct. 24, 2020 12:00 a.m.

The polls for the Oct. 24 election are now closed. Keep track of the votes as they come in here:

UPDATED Sunday, 12:01 p.m.

Chilliwack-Kent votes started rolling in on Saturday, approximately 40 minutes after polls closed. Incumbent and ex-B.C. Liberal Laurie Throness kept the lead for the first hour of counting, but it quickly became a race between he and NDP hopeful Kelli Paddon. As nearly all polls have reported by early Sunday afternoon, there’s a gap of 195 votes between the two candidates with Paddon maintaining the top spot.

RELATED: Early turnout breaks records as more than a million people vote ahead of B.C. election

The votes have been narrow throughout between the two major party candidates, but as Saturday night wore on, Independent candidate Jason Lum kept hot on their heels. By the end of Saturday, however, the gap between Lum and Throness widened.

The results currently look like this:

Paddon: 5199

Throness (Incumbent): 5004

Lum: 3842

Hammersmark: 1326

Gagné: 239

Total count: 15610

89 of 90 polls reporting

RELATED: B.C. VOTES 2020: Chilliwack-Kent, meet your candidates

Due to the pandemic, more British Columbians have decided to vote by mail-in ballot than ever before. Election results won’t be finalized until after Nov. 6., when those mail-in ballots are counted. An estimated 7,650 mail-in ballots were requested by Elections BC within the Chilliwack-Kent riding. There are 43,698 registered voters in the region.

Across B.C., a total of 478,900 mail-in ballots were returned to Election BC, as of Friday, Oct. 23.

There are roughly 3.5 million registered voters in the province.

RELATED: BC VOTES 2020: Claws come out during Chilliwack-Kent debate


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Agassiz-Harrison Observer