Polls close in Nova Scotia's 38th general election

Last Updated: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 | 2:10 PM ET

CBC News

NDP Leader Darrell Dexter casts his vote Tuesday in a Cole Harbour church. (CBC)

The polls have closed in Nova Scotia's 38th general election. Voting at polling stations across the province began at 8 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m. AT.

An upbeat NDP Leader Darrell Dexter told reporters Tuesday morning that he looked forward to a successful day, but his party was taking nothing for granted in the Nova Scotia election.

"We're looking forward to a good day today, and we’re making sure that everybody gets out to push real hard from now right through until the polls close," Dexter said, after voting at a church in his Cole Harbour riding Tuesday morning.

"It's the end of a long campaign, but I think people are really energized."

Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil cast his vote in Granville Centre in his riding of Annapolis, just five minutes from the farmhouse where he grew up with his 16 brothers and sisters. He was accompanied by his wife, Andrea, and their 19-year-old daughter, Colleen.

McNeil praised his party's performance after 35 days of campaigning.

"I’m very proud of the campaign we’ve run," he said. "I’m proud that I was able to resist the negative ads that were going around. It was very important to me. I hope Nova Scotians send a message today around that. We ran a very positive campaign.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Rodney MacDonald voted Tuesday afternoon in Mabou in his home riding of Inverness.

He said he's ready for whatever may be the outcome of the election.

"We had a good 36 days, and I’m very proud of our team, proud of our candidates and proud of the election that we’ve run. And I’ll respect the decision of Nova Scotians, whatever that is this evening," MacDonald said.

Dexter said if the people choose to make him the next premier, he will take his lifelong work ethic into the office.

"All of my life, I’ve worked hard to try and improve my province, my community, the lives of others," Dexter said.

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia RCMP and Elections Nova Scotia are looking for some ballots that were stolen Tuesday in the riding of Kings West.

The blank ballots were removed from a poll worker's car.

Dana Philip Doiron, of Elections Nova Scotia, said he’s confident none of the missing ballots will turn up in ballot boxes.

"The ballots are numbered sequentially and are easily identifiable. We’ve notified all the poll officials throughout the area, so that they will be putting into place some protection measures to protect the integrity of the vote," Doiron said.

He refused to say how many ballots were taken because that’s key to the security in place now at the polls.

Voters seem to have taken a keen interest in this election if the numbers from advance and special polls are any indication. The turnout for advance polls was up 17 per cent compared with the 2006 provincial election, which translates to approximately 11,000 more people, or 63,000 in total, who voted early. There are 691,000 registered voters for this election.

Tory government fell when finance bill failed to pass

The election campaign officially began on May 5 after opposition MLAs voted down a finance bill, which caused the fall of the minority Progressive Conservative government.

The opposition parties refused to go along with the Tory plan to spend $260 million instead of putting it toward the province's $12-billion debt as required by law.

MacDonald blamed both the NDP and Liberals for pre-empting a budget that would have seen hundreds of millions of dollars spent on new schools, roads and other infrastructure projects.

From the beginning of the election campaign, MacDonald has said he believed he was in a two-way race with Dexter.

During the campaign, the Tories criticized the NDP's platform as intentionally misleading for not being upfront about its true costs.

Dexter told voters the NDP platform would only cost taxpayers $80 million to deliver on promises such as securing jobs, keeping emergency rooms open, removing tax from home energy and fixing rural roads.

But MacDonald challenged the NDP's promise to spend $4 million on fixing rural roads by saying the party clearly didn't understand the real cost of fixing roads.

Campaign turned nasty in final week

The final week of the campaign started with the Liberal party sending a letter to Elections Nova Scotia, asking for an investigation into whether labour groups violated the Elections Act by launching an online campaign that endorsed the NDP.

After the complaint was made, the NDP returned $45,000 of a total of $50,000 in donations it received from 10 construction labour unions after learning the donation may have violated a section of the province's Members and Public Employees Disclosure Act.

The act states that political parties and candidates can only receive a maximum donation of $5,000 from individuals or organizations in each calendar year.

Mainland Nova Scotia Building and Construction Trades Council confirmed it reimbursed the union locals for their donations of $5,000 each to the NDP.

Last week, the Tory party began running ads on seven radio stations throughout the province alleging the NDP accepted illegal campaign contributions from union bosses.

The NDP responded by sending letters to the stations, demanding they stop airing what they termed "defamatory" ads. But the ads continued to run during the weekend.

5th election since 1998 for Nova Scotians

Tuesday's election marked the fifth time that Nova Scotians have gone to the polls since 1998.

Nova Scotia has had a minority Tory government since August 2003, when former premier John Hamm lost his majority.

When the election was called, the Progressive Conservatives had 21 seats, the NDP had 20 seats and the Liberals held nine seats. There was one Independent MLA, and one seat was vacant.

The Green party, led by Ryan Watson, once again ran candidates in all 52 ridings in this election.

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