B.C. election recount in Surrey-Guildford underway [Video]

Election officials filed into an industrial building in Surrey, B.C., to begin a judicial recount for the most narrowly won riding in British Columbia’s election, starting with 28 extra ballots found to have gone unreported days after the vote.

The recount will likely decide if the NDP’s one-seat majority stands, after it claimed victory in Surrey-Guildford with a margin of 27 votes over the B.C. Conservatives, giving Premier David Eby’s party 47 seats in the legislature.

Jill Lawrance, executive director of electoral operations at Elections BC, told reporters that officials would be counting 19,090 ballots in the judicial recount, which includes more 1,600 votes that were cast outside of the riding.

She says the recount — which is being done by 10 teams of two counters and two scrutineers — is expected to roll into Friday, and begins by examining envelopes that contain the 28 ballots that Elections BC said …