Day 2 of B.C. election final count ends with NDP leading by 101 votes in Courtenay-Comox

British Columbia will have to wait at least one more day for afinal result in the 2017 provincial election.

There are still approximately 17,000 absentee ballots to be counted by Elections BC in 14 ridings, including around 900 in the crucial riding of Courtenay-Comox.

There, NDP candidateRonna-RaeLeonard leads by 101 votes over Liberal candidate Jim Benninger.

Across the province, the B.C. Liberals' popular vote lead over the NDP has shrunk to 2,612 votes 793,213 votes to 790,601.

If any riding after thefinal count is within 1/500th of the total ballots considered, the district electoral officer must apply for an automatic recount.

At this point, however, no completed count meets that threshold.

Of the five ridingswhere absentee votes had the potential to change the winning party, the Liberals were able to hold on to the riding of Richmond-Queensborough by 134 votes and Coquitlam-Burke Mountain by 87 votes, after the final count.

Counting is still underway in Maple Ridge-Mission, where the NDP now leads by 369 votes, and Vancouver-False Creek, where the Liberals lead by 406 votes, althoughneither one is expected to change hands.

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• Absentee voting explained: why B.C. election results won't be final until at least May 22

The Liberals need to take one additional seat in order to have the 44MLAsand a majority in the legislature. If they fail to do so, a variety of scenarios, including an NDP government, are in play.

"It's still very close, and everybody's anxious to see what will happen next," saidGlen Sanford, theNDP'sdeputy director, who is representing the party as a scrutineer in Courtenay-Comox.

"The trend is going in the right direction ...everyone's still chewing their fingernails until [Wednesday] afternoon, when we should have the final result."

Elections BC will continue itscount Wednesday morningand isexpected to give itsfirst update at 10 a.m. PT.