Update: Alexis has been declared the winner in the riding. For the latest story, click here.
The BC NDP”s Pam Alexis has overtaken BC Liberal Simon Gibson and built a considerable lead in the Abbotsford-Mission riding since counting of mail-in ballots began Friday.
Alexis, Mission’s Mayor, had trailed the Gibson, the incumbent in the riding, by 188 votes after election day. But with more than 8,000 mail-in ballots requested by Abbotsford-Mission residents, the counting of those votes will decide who heads to Victoria.
The Abbotsford-Mission riding includes Abbotsford east of Highway 11 and north of Highway 1 and Mission east of Cedar Street and the Cedar Valley Connector.
By Friday morning, more than half of those ballots had been counted. At 8:30 a.m., Alexis held a 547-vote lead. Counting is expected to finish Sunday.
Polls from before the election had suggested that NDP voters were more likely to vote by mail than BC Liberal supporters, and the results thus far have suggested that was true.
So far, Alexis has claimed about half of all mail-in ballots counted for Abbotsford-Mission. Only one-third of mail-in votes were cast for Gibson. Of the remainder, most were cast for the BC Greens’ Stephen Fowler, who has added more than 500 votes to his total.
By Sunday morning, there were only about 2,800 ballots left to count.
To turn the tables, Gibson would need to take more than half of all remaining ballots, while hoping Alexis receives less than one-third of the outstanding vote.
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