With the Mushkegowuk-James Bay riding being decided by just four votes, the ballots will likely be recounted.
The unofficial results from Elections Ontario show NDP incumbent Guy Bourgouin with 3,606 votes (45.4 per cent) and PC Dave Plourde with 3,602 votes (45.35 per cent).
Given the tight margin, a recount is likely.
Under Ontario’s election rules, a returning officer must apply for a recount if the difference between the top two candidates is fewer than 25 votes.
Melanie Gagne, Bourgouin’s campaign manager, confirmed in an email to TimminsToday that due to the close results, they are not accepting media requests at this time.
“We are waiting on communication from Elections Ontario. Most likely there will be a recount, but we cannot confirm anything at the moment,” she wrote.
Plourde has not responded to requests for comment.
The official tabulation for the Ontario election is from March 1-3.
Elections Ontario is waiting for the official tabulation process before determining the next steps.
There is one other riding that also has less than a 25-vote margin.
In Mississauga-Erin Mills, after the unofficial polls the PC candidate is 20 votes ahead of the Liberal candidate.
Recounts in Ontario provincial elections are rare. Since 1975, there have been 17 recounts across eight elections, with only two occurring in Northern Ontario — in Cochrane North in 1981 and Thunder Bay-Atikokan in 2007.
What happens if there's a recount?
The Ontario Election Act lays out how a recount goes. Within four days (excluding Sunday) of the returning officer's official tabulation, a judge may name a time and place to recount votes.
There are three situations when a recount can happen — if a deputy returning officer has improperly counted or rejected ballots or made an incorrect statement about the number of votes for a candidate, if the returning officer improperly tabulated the votes, and if there are fewer than 25 votes between the first- and second-place candidates.
The recount has to be held within 10 days of the judge hearing the application.
A recount is done manually, even though vote-counting equipment is used on election day.
This story has been updated from an earlier version to include information from Elections Ontario
