In an election marked with enhanced safety precautions due to COVID-19, Doris Bill has been re-elected to a third term as chief of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation.

Bill received 235 votes for chief, over 70 more than her closest rival, Sean Smith. Ian Kuster finished in third place with 26 votes.

On Thursday morning, Bill said she's "very tired, but pleased with the outcome."

"I think from what I heard from a lot of people, there's been a lot of progress over the two terms that I've been in office," she said. "We work hard, and I think people want to continue on with that movement."

Sixteen candidates sought six council positions in Wednesday's election, with Rosemary Waugh-Wilson, Charlene Charlie, Jessie Dawson, Jess Ryder, Raymond Sydney, and Charles Joseph Chief being elected.

Just three councillors — Dawson, Sydney, and Chief — were re-elected, with three new faces joining them.

"We're going to have to get to know one another," said Bill of her new team. "It's a huge learning curve ... I hope that we can build a good strong relationship and a good strong team together and move forward from here."

We need to first get over this crisis before we move forward. - Doris Bill, Re-elected chief

However, chief returning officer Norman Eady said an automatic recount is triggered if two candidates are within four votes of each other. Chief, with 170 votes, was just three votes ahead of the seventh-place finisher, Howard MacIntosh, and therefore a recount will take place Thursday at noon.

The First Nation's election was marked by extra precautions due to COVID-19, including spacing out voting booths and limiting the amount of people in the voting place at any one time. (Karen Vallevand/CBC)

The election proceeded as scheduled despite the COVID-19 pandemic, with officials taking extra precautions including spacing polling booths further apart, controlling the size of the group present, and cleaning polling booths after each use.

Bill said that her new council team will likely meet by teleconference for now, and that their immediate focus will turn to responding to the pandemic.

"We will be offering essential services only, we've started to wind down," she said. "We need to protect our citizens and we need to protect our staff.

"During this election, it's been a huge, huge challenge trying to deal with that ... But we got through it ... and we need to first get over this crisis before we move forward."

Full results from the election are below:

Chief

Doris Bill (elected) 235

Sean Smith 162

Ian Kuster 26

Council