Following Thursday’s claims from the BC Conservatives that the party found 45 “irregularities” in last fall’s provincial election, voters should not expect to go back to the polls.
After initially saying it agreed with the results in the battleground riding of Surrey-Guildford, former Conservative candidate Honveer Singh Randhawa is petitioning the BC Supreme Court to deem the outcome invalid.
(Courtesy X / @angeloisidorou)
Political analyst David Moscrop thinks this will make its way through the court system quickly.
“And given more care than you might suspect, because people are going to want answers and they’re going to want them sooner rather than later because there’s a Legislature that needs to function,” he explained. “But at the same time, you have to do your due diligence and make sure the inquiry into this is done very, very, carefully.”
Moscrop explains why this is only coming to light now, given the election was in late October, with the outcome solidified just a few weeks later.
“What changed in three months is new information comes to light perhaps, or you spend a couple of months as Opposition and your animosity towards the other side grows a little bit. The clock starts to tick down and you realize it’s now or never and you decide, ‘Well, hey, what the heck? What’s the worst that could happen?’”
Moscrop says for the party, there’s no real consequence, but there could be further ramifications.
“The Conservatives may not have anything to lose rolling the dice, but if you get this wrong, the integrity of your elections could be compromised. The trust in your elections could be compromised and the people of the province have a great deal to lose.”
If the court sides with the BC Conservatives, he explains there will likely be a by-election in the riding, but there still wouldn’t be a general election. If the seat flips to the Conservatives, and the party questions the confidence of the BC NDP to govern, you can expect a repeat of 2017, when the New Democratic Party struck a confidence pact with the BC Greens to help prop up the government.
“Given the history of parliamentary systems, you probably wouldn’t get another general election immediately,” explained Moscrop. “You can switch governments within the life of a Parliament within about six months or so, but if it’s been longer than six months, the norm would be you would go to another general election.”
“Granted, you could try eight or even 10 months later. But I think very few people want another general election. It costs the province a lot of money to run an election. It costs the parties a lot of money to run an election, and this would probably coincide with a federal election. It’d be an absolute mess,” he said.
If the court doesn’t side with the Conservatives, Moscrop doesn’t believe the party will lose the public’s trust.
“I think the province moves on. Everyone forgets this and moves on. If, the Conservatives say, ‘Well, we don’t believe you,’ or we want to put it even further, then we have a problem. Then you get into stolen election narrative territory, and we’ve seen where that goes.”
He thinks these claims are only a storyline because of how tight the race was.
“If this was a close riding, even off by one or two votes, but the NDP had four or five or six or 10 more seats than the Conservatives, it would hardly be a news story. Nobody would really care.”
Elections BC initially said the NDP candidate, Garry Begg, was leading by 21 votes. There was a judicial recount finalized three weeks later where the final count was 22 votes. Having the NDP win the riding is what led the party to secure a 47-seat majority to rule the province.
In addition to getting the court involved, the Conservatives are also pushing for an independent review of the entire 2024 provincial election.
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