LANGLEY riding: NDP candidate Andrew Mercier projected winner

Andrew Mercier of the NDP has been elected as the new MLA in Langley, a riding previously held by the BC Liberal Party, The Canadian Press reports.

Mercier won 6,460 out of 14,475 counted votes (44.63 per cent) with 90 of 91 polls reporting.

Mary Polak of the BC Liberal Party won 5,040 votes (34.82 per cent). Bill Masse of the Green party won 1,583 votes (10.94 per cent). Shelly Jan of the Conservative party won 1,392 votes (9.62 per cent).

As of 9:57 p.m., The Canadian Press is projecting the BC NDP has won a majority government. The party has won or is leading in 54 of 87 seats. The BC Liberal Party has won or is leading in 30, and the BC Green Party has won or is leading in three seats.

As of Oct. 23, 8,944 vote-by-mail packages had been issued to registered voters in the riding. There are a total of 40,077 registered voters in Langley.

Provincewide, 724,279 mail-in ballots have been sent out, and there are 3,485,858 registered voters.

Mail-in ballots will be counted by hand, starting in 13 days.

RELATED: Langley riding has been divided up, fought over, and won by five different parties

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LOCAL CANDIDATE PROFILES AND Q&A

Langley riding

BC Conservative candidate Shelly Jan

BC Green candidate Bill Masse

BC NDP candidate Andrew Mercier

BC Liberal candidate Mary Polak

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Langley East riding

BC NDP candidate Megan Dykeman

BC Libertarian candidate Alex Joehl

BC Liberal candidate Margaret Kunst

BC Independent candidate Tara Reeve

BC Conservative candidate Ryan Warawa

BC Green candidate Cheryl Wiens

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READ MORE: Langley candidates cast themselves in rom-coms, superhero flicks, and dramas

FINAL RESULTS DELAYED

Due to the ongoing pandemic, more British Columbians have decided to vote by mail-in ballot than ever before.

Election results won’t be finalized until after Nov. 6, when those mail-in ballots are counted.

This means that tonight’s election results may change.

An estimated 8,944 mail-in ballots were requested by Elections BC within the Langley riding. There are a little more than 44,715 registered voters in the region.

Across B.C., a total of 478,900 mail-in ballots were returned to Election BC, as of Friday, Oct. 23.

There are roughly 3.5 million registered voters in the province.

Here is where you can find vote-by-mail numbers and registered voter numbers by riding:

https://elections.bc.ca/docs/2020-vote-by-mail-statistics.pdf

RELATED: Rich Coleman gets back to roots after 24 years as MLA comes to an end

- with files from The Canadian Press

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