Bloc Qubcois wins one tight race, Liberals take another – CBC.ca

Almost two days after the federal election, the Quebec riding of Trois-Rivires has finally declared a winner.

Bloc Qubcois candidate Ren Villemurefinished 93 votesahead of Conservative Yves Lvesque in Trois-Rivires as the counting endedWednesday afternoon.

Trois-Rivires has generallyvoted Bloc since 1993, but got caught up in the so-called NDP "orange wave"of 2011 and continued to support the New Democratic Party in 2015. Louise Charbonneau won the seat back for the Bloc in 2019 butopted out of running againthis election.

The Bloc win inChteauguayLacollehas been confirmed, according to Elections Canada. With all the ballots tallied,Patrick O'Hara beat theLiberal incumbent Brenda Shanahanby 606 votes.

In Longueuil-Saint-Hubert, it was announced late Wednesday that theBloc's Denis Trudel beatLiberal Florence Gagnon.

That gives the Bloc 33 seats in the House of Commons.

In the riding of Brome-Mississquoi, the counting continued until a winner was announced Thursday evening.

Liberal candidate Pascale St-Ongewon with 186 votes more than Bloc QubcoiscandidateMarilou Alarie.

So, what's taking so long? Elections Canada says there were still 850,000 postal votes uncounted after Monday night Canada-wide.

The agency expects the results to be tallied by the end of Wednesday but it haswarned that some ridings may have to wait until Friday for a winner.

In some constituencies, verifying mail-in ballots took all day Tuesday, before counting could start, a spokesman for Elections Canada said.

Mail ballots have to be carefully checked to ensure they have been signed and that people have not already voted in person, or sent in more than one ballot by post.

Matthew McKenna, a spokesman for Elections Canada, said verifying huge numbers of ballots delayed counting in some areas.

"The counting of local ballots will take place throughout the day local offices also had to do verifications of special ballots, and for many, that took all day yesterday, and may still be going,'' he said Wednesday.

"We do expect the vast majority to be counted by the end of the day.''

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Bloc Qubcois wins one tight race, Liberals take another - CBC.ca