It may not be an election night, but possibly an election month, according to a Squamish political expert.
"Certainly, if I was a campaign manager, I would not be telling anyone to make a concession speech for at least three to four weeks," said Doug Munroe, a political science instructor from Quest University, and founder of public policy consulting firm, Politikos Research.
Munroe said the lengthy wait can be expected because the pandemic has prompted many people to use mail-in ballots. Traditionally, this has not been the case.
"Mail-in voting is typically a fraction of a percentage," he said.
"Usually it's third of a percent. This time, you could be looking at a third to half of all the votes of some ridings being by mail."
Munroe wasn't exaggerating.
According to Elections BC, there were only 114 people in the entire riding that used mail-in voting during the 2017 election — about 0.46% of all the ballots cast in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.
This year, that number is predicted to skyrocket, as 7,704 people have signed up for mail-in voting in the riding — about 18% of the 42,786 people registered to vote.
Mail-in ballots take longer to count.
Due to regulations preventing double-voting, Elections BC must wait for the mail-in ballots to arrive, and then transfer them to the ridings where they were cast.
That way, Munroe said, counters can identify if anyone tried to vote twice.
This is a lengthy process, he said, as the counting of mail-in ballots starts two weeks after election day, which is Oct. 24.
It will all be hand-counted by staff in the riding, with two people counting each ballot for cross-checking purposes.
"I think the story of this election is not who wins or who doesn't but how well our electoral system works under pandemic conditions," said Munroe. "I've got a lot of confidence in Elections BC."
On the political side, campaigning under these conditions would certainly pose some challenges. Door-to-door knocking has probably been far less common, with direct mail and online advertising being the next best methods, Munroe said.
But something like direct mail would be quite difficult this vote, considering printing and delivery takes time, and this snap election was called with little notice, he said.
At the moment, Munroe said that the NDP are expected to win provincewide, but he noted that forecasting is always based on behaviour from past elections.
There is no precedent for an election in the middle of a pandemic, which may make those models completely obsolete, he said.
As for favoured candidates in the Sea to Sky, Munroe said that this riding has been a predictably reliable stronghold for the BC Liberals for some time.
That being said, Squamish has been getting noticeably more pro-Green in the last few years, with that party beating out the NDP in the previous provincial election in 2017.
Dana Taylor, at the time a rookie in provincial politics, took about 28% of the vote with about 6,947 cast in his favour. He was second place, beating out NDP candidate and fellow rookie Michelle Livaja, who amassed about 27% of the vote with 6,532 ballots.
Incumbent BC Liberal Jordan Sturdy, however, had a commanding lead with 10,449 votes, about 43%.
Munroe noted this time around, the Greens have been showing considerable interest in the riding.
Green leader Sonia Furstenau declared the area as "within reach" of the party in a news release, and has made at least two appearances in the riding.
First, she announced Jeremy Valeriote as the local candidate on Sept. 29, and, on Oct. 20, she was campaigning with him in riding.
"We know things are getting closer and closer in West Vancouver Sea-to-Sky," said Furstenau in a news release.
Nevertheless, Munroe said, any result that would have the Liberals overthrown in this riding would be considered an upset.
"Squamish, in particular, feels like it's getting a little greener every time we have an election," said Munroe. "But Squamish is just one of the communities in the riding and, again, there's a pandemic going on. [People] all want to opt with their MLA that they know, and go with the experience factor."
