Tuesday marked the culmination of a year-long wait for new municipal governments across the province.
Elections New Brunswick initially postponed the election by one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But by the time most New Brunswickers finally went to the polls on May 10, reporting of the results was delayed another few weeks due to lockdowns in the Edmundston-Madawaska region.
On May 25, an election more than a year in the making was finally completed, as results poured in starting at 8 p.m.
“Two province-wide elections in the span of seven months under pandemic conditions – we’re good,” said a very tired Elections NB Spokesperson Paul Harpelle on Wednesday.
“We would welcome a standard, boring election that came with no curveballs. That would be ideal.”
Counting dragged on longer than expected
Due to a provincial act, Elections NB was unable to begin counting ballots until Tuesday morning, and results were expected to be available for most of the province by the time polls closed in Edmundston at 8 p.m.
However, by Tuesday afternoon Elections NB had already announced it was running behind due to unexpected technical issues. In the end, it wasn’t until the early hours of Wednesday morning that all votes were tallied.
Harpelle says they did receive some blowback over the late reporting, but he says their focuswas always on accurately reporting the results.
“This is not a sport that speed is the determining factor,” he said. “It’s accuracy, and ensuring the results people are seeing on the website are solid.”
Elections NB livestreamed the vote counting process beginning Tuesday morning as crews worked all day, breaking only for meals. Harpelle said it was the same crew of eight working tirelessly on the livestream from 9 a.m. Tuesday until 1:30 Wednesday morning.
He blamed the results delay on the limited number of election workers available. In a normal campaign, hundreds of election workers would be out around the province to help count.
Harpelle says they could have considered doubling their crew size from eight to 16 to speed up the process. But ultimately they erred on the side of a smaller crew, in part due to COVID-19 guidelines.
In the end, the small team took on the massive task, and Harpelle was pleased with their work.
“Generally people were hurting in spots they didn’t realize they had anymore,” he said about the feeling after all results were counted.
“It was jubilation that we had gotten through this, and exhaustion from the sheer amount of energy it took to get this thing done.”
Recounts could be around the corner
Elections NB does not conduct automatic recounts, but allows losing candidates who finish within 25 votes to request a second count.
In a small province like New Brunswick, it’s not unusual to see races that finish with single-digit margins.
The 2021 election featured 59 races that finished within the recount margin, including 28 races within 10 votes and 17 races within five votes.
Harpelle says they have already heard from several candidates looking for recounts, including one candidate in Saint John’s fourth ward who lost by just eight votes.
Despite the close margins, Harpelle says he’s fairly confident in the initial vote tabulation.
“We’ve never seen an actual flip take place in the outcome, and the margins have never changed significantly with the ballots being counted a second time,” he said.
Before the recount window opens, Elections NB will make the results official on Declaration Day, sometime later this week. Once the votes have been verified candidates can officially request the recount.
