Projected Green seat flipped to Liberals following tightest race in B.C.

If anything's been learned from the election south of the border it's not to call winners early, and not todismiss the influence of mail-in ballots.

Like the U.S., B.C. is also seeing a twist or two as 660,000 absentee and mail inballots from the provincial election are finally counted thisweekend.

In the riding of West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, projected Green Party winner JeremyValeriote has lost to Liberal Jordan Sturdy by a margin of just 41 votes the tightest race in the province.

Valeriotewas heralded as a Green breakthroughand the first party candidate to be elected on the mainland after leading byover 600 votes at the close of election night on Oct. 24. Sturdy will hold on to the ridingnow that all votes have been counted, according to results from Elections B.C. on Saturday

The margin is slimenough to trigger an automaticjudicial recount which will be scheduled in thecoming days.Sturdy has received 9,216 votes to Valeriote's 9,175.

In Abbotsford-Mission, the NDP'sPam Alexis has flipped the seat,defeating incumbent Simon Gibson by 744 votes in what was considered a safe riding for the B.C. Liberals.

Alexis, the mayor of Mission,received 10,364 votes to Gibson's 9,620, with mail-in votes pushing her to overtakeGibson's election night lead.

Throness loses

InChilliwack-Kent, Kelli Paddonof the NDPhas unseated incumbent Laurie Thronessby 1,300 votes.

Throness resigned from the Liberal Party and ran as an independent less than two weeks before the election after causing an uproar for comparing free contraception programs to eugenics.

In Richmond-South Centre, Henry Yaoof the NDPhas finished 179 votes ahead of Liberal Alexa Loo.

In Vernon-Monashee,Liberal incumbent Eric Foster saw a 200 vote lead flip to a 282vote deficit to newcomer Harwinder Sandhuof the NDP as of Saturday night.

Heading into Sunday, the NDPhad won 56confirmed seats. The B.C. Liberals have 27 and the Greens two.

Elections BC is aiming to finish counting the 660,000 mail-in and absentee ballots by late Sunday to reach a final count for all ridings.