VANCOUVER – More than 170,000 elementary and high school students participated in the Student Vote program for the 2017 B.C. election where the NDP came out with a majority victory.
After learning about the electoral process, researching the parties and platforms, and debating the future of British Columbia, students cast ballots for the official candidates running in their local electoral district.
As of 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, 1,092 schools had reported their election results, representing all 87 electoral districts in the province. In total, 170,238 ballots were cast by student participants; this includes 163,923 valid votes and 6,315 rejected votes.
In the Student Vote results, the NDP form government with 60 seats. The Green Party form the Official Opposition with 14 and the Liberals win 12. One independent candidate was elected.
Horgan won in his electoral district of Langford—Juan de Fuca with 55.7 per cent of the vote.
Andrew Weaver and the BC Greens took 14 seats and will form the official opposition, receiving 28.5 per cent of the popular vote. Weaver won in his electoral district of Oak Bay—Gordon Head with 48.9 per cent of the vote.
Christy Clark and the BC Liberals won 12 seats and received 25.4 per cent of the vote. Clark was defeated in her district of Kelowna West by NDP candidate Shelley Cook; Clark received 32.1 per cent of votes cast, compared to Cook’s 35.8 per cent.
Students also elected independent candidate Nicholas Wong in Delta South. Wong defeated Liberal candidate Ian Paton by 10 votes.
This is the fourth provincial-level Student Vote project conducted in British Columbia. In the 2013 provincial election, 101,627 students participated from 766 schools.
VIEW COMPLETE RESULTS HERE: http://studentvote.ca/results/bc2017
