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Election’s final voting results complete

The final voting results are in and the winner of the Kootenay West riding is still Katrine Conroy.
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Don Vinish

Drum roll please.

The final voting results are in and the winner of the Kootenay West riding is still Katrine Conroy.

The final count, which includes absentee ballots that were not considered part of the initial count, was completed this week by the district electoral officer at the election office on McQuarrie Street in East Trail.

In the initial count, which is preliminary and only includes ballots cast under general voting and advance voting, NDP incumbent Conroy received 10,606 votes or 62.99 per cent of the popular vote.

Although, no big surprises were expected in the Kootenay West riding, district electoral officer Don Vinish, said absentee ballots could conceivably have changed the outcome, but this time around, it is status quo.

Conroy received an additional 743 votes from absentee ballots, which tallies to 11,349 or 63.04 per cent of the final vote count.

Jim Postnikoff, BC Liberal Party candidate, received an additional 239 votes which upped his percentage to 21.33 from 21.28 per cent of support on voting day.

Interestingly, Glen Byle, independent, received an additional 31 votes, to bring his final count to 431. Those votes only increased his percentage of the popular vote from 2.38 to 2.39.

Joseph Hughes, independent, received 152 votes cast through absentee ballots, but according to the Elections BC website, this diminished his percentage of the popular vote to 13.28, from 13.3 on election day.

See related story on Page 4.

Although the final tally does not change power in the Kootenay West District, it is causing a ruckus in various ridings on the coast, where the initial counts were much closer between candidates.

For example, in the Coquitlam riding, the initial winner Liberal’s Steve Kim, was announced on election day, pulling ahead of NDP candidate Selena Robinson by 105 votes.

Once absentee ballots were counted on Monday, Robinson was declared the victor by 35 votes.

Elections BC finished its final count yesterday, and results are posted on its website, elections.bc.ca.



Sheri Regnier

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