Election officials will begin counting the 681 votes that have not yet been counted in the hotly contested Juan de Fuca-Malahat constituency on Saturday, October 26.

The votes remaining to be counted include approximately 496 certification envelopes containing absentee and assisted telephone ballots as well as 185 certification envelopes containing special and absentee ballots.

After the October 19 election night count, Dana Lajeunesse of the BC NDP held a 23-vote lead over BC Conservative Marina Sapozhnikov. Lajeunesse finished with 8,942 votes (38.5%), followed by Sapozhnikov with 8,919 votes (38.4%) and David Evans of the Green Party of British Columbia with 5,345 votes (23%).

An estimated 65,000 absentee and mail-in ballots across the province will be counted from Saturday to Monday. This will be followed by a recount for the two constituencies where the lead was less than 100 votes, Surrey City Center and Juan de Fuca-Malahat.

The NDP was elected or leading in 46 ridings after the initial count, the Conservatives had 45, while the Greens won two.

Elections BC says results from the downtown Surrey recount will be posted on its website on Sunday when it is completed, while Juan De Fuca-Malahat’s results will be posted on Monday.