2024 BC Election Vote Splitting

The NDP won the smallest possible majority. A few hundred votes in a few ridings could have changed that.

What is vote splitting?

In BC, the candidate with the most votes in a riding wins, even with less than half of the votes. When two parties compete for the same voters, they split those votes. Then a third party can win, even if it got fewer votes than the other two together.

47 of 93
seats won by the NDP. A majority needs 47.
22 votes
The NDP won Surrey-Guildford by this much.
94 votes
of 7,202 Green votes would have won Courtenay-Comox for the NDP.

Seats won

Find your riding

The election on October 24, 2026 uses the same ridings as the 2024 election. Type the name of your riding to see how close it was. If you do not know your riding, find it by address on the Elections BC site.

Ridings vote splitting could have changed

In 11 ridings, the second place party would have won with some of the votes of one other party. For the NDP, these are the Green votes. For the Conservatives, these are the votes for the former BC United candidates. This is true even if all of the split votes on the other side had gone to the winner. Not all of those voters would have switched, but in several ridings, a small share was enough. "Needed" is how many of those votes it needed.

Highlighted, with the share in bold: needed less than 10% of the split votes

Riding Flips to Needed Share
Courtenay-Comox NDP 94
of 7,202
 1.3%
Maple Ridge East NDP 98
of 1,626
 6.0%
Vernon-Lumby ConservativeCon. 477
of 4,266
 11.2%
Richmond-Steveston ConservativeCon. 485
of 2,354
 20.6%
North Island NDP 640
of 2,397
 26.7%
Columbia River-Revelstoke NDP 671
of 1,430
 46.9%
Surrey-Cloverdale NDP 587
of 1,150
 51.0%
Langley-Willowbrook NDP 868
of 1,670
 52.0%
Kamloops Centre NDP 2,004
of 2,597
 77.2%
Langley-Walnut Grove NDP 1,173
of 1,254
 93.5%
Boundary-Similkameen NDP 1,439
of 1,454
 99.0%

Other close ridings

In 13 other ridings, the winner won by fewer than 1,000 votes. A small number of voters could change these results in the next election. Each riding shows the votes for the NDP, the Greens, the Conservatives and the former BC United candidates.

Highlighted, with the margin in bold: won by fewer than 100 votes

Riding Won by
Surrey-Guildford
  • NDP 8,947
  • Green 824
  • Conservative 8,925
  • Former BC United None
22
Kelowna Centre
  • NDP 10,993
  • Green 1,111
  • Conservative 11,033
  • Former BC United 2,613
40
Juan de Fuca-Malahat
  • NDP 9,308
  • Green 5,522
  • Conservative 9,167
  • Former BC United None
141
Surrey City Centre
  • NDP 6,726
  • Green 877
  • Conservative 6,494
  • Former BC United None
232
Surrey-Panorama
  • NDP 8,472
  • Green None
  • Conservative 8,735
  • Former BC United None
263
Penticton-Summerland
  • NDP 11,298
  • Green 1,472
  • Conservative 11,615
  • Former BC United 2,720
317
Coquitlam-Burke Mountain
  • NDP 11,020
  • Green None
  • Conservative 10,652
  • Former BC United None
368
Vancouver-Langara
  • NDP 8,506
  • Green 969
  • Conservative 8,087
  • Former BC United None
419
Surrey-Serpentine River
  • NDP 9,347
  • Green None
  • Conservative 9,782
  • Former BC United None
435
West Vancouver-Sea to Sky
  • NDP 7,213
  • Green 10,438
  • Conservative 9,762
  • Former BC United None
676
Surrey-Fleetwood
  • NDP 9,923
  • Green 1,321
  • Conservative 9,170
  • Former BC United None
753
Skeena
  • NDP 5,419
  • Green 406
  • Conservative 6,243
  • Former BC United None
824
Cowichan Valley
  • NDP 11,795
  • Green 5,773
  • Conservative 10,946
  • Former BC United 263
849

What this means for you

  • In 2024, vote splitting could have changed the result in 11 of the 93 ridings. In 13 other ridings, the winner won by fewer than 1,000 votes. In a close riding, a small number of votes can decide who wins. Find your riding to see how close it was.
  • Under first-past-the-post, the winner can be a candidate that most voters in the riding did not vote for. Vote splitting can decide who that is.
  • BC has held three referendums on changing the voting system, in 2005, 2009 and 2018. Each time, the system stayed the same. In 2025, a committee of the legislature recommended that the government consider a peoples' assembly on how BC elects its members of the legislature. Fair Vote Canada campaigns for proportional representation in BC.
  • Check that you are registered to vote before the election on October 24, 2026.

About this data

The vote counts come from Elections BC's final voting results data on the BC Data Catalogue (November 25, 2025 version). Each count is the valid votes for a candidate, added up across all voting places. Contains information licenced under the Elections BC Open Data Licence.

"Won by" is the winner's lead over the second place candidate. "Needed" is how many more votes the second place party needed to win. A close result is a gap of fewer than 1,000 votes.