New voting technology should lead to bigger election turnout
Last Updated: Monday, April 14, 2008 | 12:48 PM AT
CBC News
New Brunswickers will be able to vote in their hometown's municipal elections in May from anywhere in the province.
A new computer technology will allow eligible voters to visit any returning office in New Brunswick after April 21 and cast their vote, said Michael Quinn, the province's chief electoral officer.
"Someone from Bathurst who happens to be working in Saint John, can go to a returning office in Saint John and get a ballot for the contests that are going on in Bathurst," Quinn said.
It is hoped the flexibility of the new system will translate into a higher voter turnout for May's municipal elections, which will also include the election of representatives to serve on the province's district education councils, he said.
The new system will allow for a continuous advance poll to be run from April 12 until the elections on May 12.
The province's eligible voters are registered on the computer system and as they go to the returning office outside their hometown their names will be electronically checked off so they can't vote twice, Quinn said.
The technology will also automatically send the vote to the municipality where the voter is from, he added.
"The returning offices now have the capability to count all of the ballots by using this technology. So the returning office in Bathurst might have the ballots that were cast for candidates in Fredericton or Saint John or Moncton and the equipment and programs have the capacity of sorting that and then adding the Saint John votes to the Saint John candidates," Quinn said.
Individuals who do not vote in advance or from out-of-town will continue to cast their ballots at polling stations in the province's 14 electoral districts on May 12.
The new system will also implement an electronic ballot-scanning method for when the votes are counted in addition to the traditional hand-count, he said. The method of counting the votes should also lead to quicker results returns, he added.
