Milobar retains win in final count, but by fewer than 200 votes

Photo: Brendan Kergin

Every vote has been counted in the Kamloops-North Thompson riding, and as was expected on election night, Peter Milobar kept his seat. But his margin of victory shrunk as mail-in ballots were counted.

Elections BC completed counting votes in the riding Sunday and put the final tally at 9,341 for Milobar, the Liberal incumbent, while NDP challenger Sadie Hunter collected 9,145 votes.

That's a difference of just 196 votes, or less than 1 per cent.

The final tally is much closer than it was election night, two weeks ago. At the time, the Canadian Press called the riding for Milobar when he had a lead of more than 600 votes with most ballot boxes counted.

However, as mail-in ballots were counted, that number shrank. Elections BC reported more than 5,700 mail-in voting packages were sent out in the riding, as a record number of voters cast their ballots via the mail-in option this year.

In total 22,787 ballots were cast in the riding. Green candidate Thomas Martin placed third with 2,224 votes, while Conservative Dennis Giesbrecht was just behind with 1,928. Independent candidate Brandon Russell, one of the youngest people to run in the province, finished with 149 votes.

In the Kamloops-South Thompson riding Liberal incumbent Todd Stone's margin of victory didn't change by much, with more than 51 per cent of the ballots cast for him after the final count, compared to 52 per cent on election night. Anna Thomas of the NDP has finished with 8,575 and Dan Hines of the Greens collected 4,726.

The nearby Fraser-Nicola riding, which includes Merritt, has been completed as well. There, Liberal incumbent Jackie Teggart successfully defeated Aaron Sumexheltza of the NDP in the end, though it was also close. Teggart finished with 5,696 votes, compared to Sumexheltza's 5,414.