Taleeb Noormohamed wins Vancouver Granville for Liberals

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Taleeb Noormohamed has won the Vancouver Granville race for the Liberal Party in a close contest.

The contest was too close to call on election night, but with all mail-in ballots counted for the trip, Noormohamed has maintained his slight lead over the new Democratic candidate, beating Anjali Appadurai by a margin of 436 votes.

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Noormohamed, a technology executive, got 34 percent of the vote in the race, which returns to the Liberals after his victory.

Riding was previously represented by Jody Wilson-Raybould, who resigned from the cabinet in 2019 after a public showdown with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and ran and won as an independent in that year’s federal election.

NDP candidate Anjali Appadurai received 33 percent of the vote, followed by conservative candidate Kailin Che, who got almost 29 percent.

The final result of the federal election can take until the weekend, or even longer, because thousands of ballots still need to be counted by mail.

Twelve districts did not begin counting mail-in ballots until Friday, Elections Canada confirmed.

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In two close races at BC – at Nanaimo-Ladysmith and Richmond Center – mail-in votes could secure the bottom line.

Officials began counting mail-in ballots Friday morning in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, a three-way battle between the NDP, the Tories and the Greens, according to Elections Canada. Votes counted on election night at polling stations suggest that the NDP has a slight advantage in running British Columbia.

At Richmond Center, with all mail-in ballots counted Friday afternoon, liberal candidate Wilson Miao is clinging to a 700-vote victory over his closest opponent Alice Wong, who represents the Conservatives.

In Nanaimo-Ladysmith, vote-by-mail ballots would determine the outcome of a battle between Lisa Marie Barron of the NDP and the conservative Tamara Kronis, who are separated by about 1,000 votes. Green Party incumbent Paul Manly is in third place.

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Elections Canada expected the count to end on Friday. But the count in some constituencies could continue until the weekend, before the final result can be announced.

Officials should review and verify mail ballots before they begin counting them, to make sure they have been signed and that people have not voted twice.

In some constituencies, more than 10,000 mail-in ballots had to be verified before counting could begin. This election received a record number of votes by mail, some from people who did not want to vote in person during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elections Canada said in a statement that in more than 300 constituencies the count has ended.

Counts are expected in some constituencies with very close results, such as Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley in Manitoba, where the Conservatives outnumbered the Liberals by just 24 votes

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Elections expert Dennis Pilon said mail-in ballots “had made a difference in some elections.”

Pilon, an associate professor of politics at York University, said that in very close contests parties could call for a recount, particularly if “spoiled” ballots were a subject of contention.

He said that the tellers of each party carefully monitor how the counts are carried out to ensure that all the votes they receive are counted.

They pay special attention to “spoiled” ballots, ignored because they have been filled out incorrectly, or are difficult to interpret, in photo-final races.

With files from The Canadian Press

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