Election Recount Update

Election recounts cost time and money
May, 30 2005 - 11:00 AM

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) - A record number
of recounts has Elections BC calling for changes.

Elections BC staff will do their final count today, adding
absentee ballots to the election day total...but they're
also doing a record eight recounts.

Only Cariboo-South and Vancouver-Burrard are really
close---and Jennifer Miller with Elections BC says
recounts likely won't change much in the other ridings.

"It may change slightly but in most cases it doesn't,
what will, may change the results of course are the
absentee ballots."

Miller says recounts cost time and money...

"On average it costs about five-thousand dollars to do
a recount or more depending on the location and the
number of ballots to be considered."

She says Elections BC may ask the government to put
in some minimum thresholds to allow for recounts.
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Commentary:

What I can't figure out is that we can get a tally of
the votes on the day of the election, May 17th, but
here we are almost 2 weeks later and the absentee
ballots still haven't been counted. I'm not sure what
the deadline was for those, perhaps that's the problem,
but it seems pretty strange to me in the face of the
efficiency of the other processes Elections BC organizes.
It's also surprising they don't have a threshold of votes
whereby a recount can occur. This race was especially
close in ridings such as Vancouver-Burrard, so that
should be automatic, but in others I could see how a
recount should be done. It's interesting that the
additional absentee ballots could play a significant
role in some of the outcomes.