What you need to know about voting in Tantramar elections
The first votes in the first-ever election for a new town of Tantramar council will be cast this Saturday at the Middle Sackville Baptist Church.
There are two advanced polling days before election day on November 28, both at the Middle Sackville Baptist Church, which also goes by Church by the Lake, at 14 Church Street.
Advanced polling days
- Saturday, November 19, 10am to 8pm, Middle Sackville Baptist Church, 14 Church St
- Monday, November 21, 10am to 8pm, Middle Sackville Baptist Church, 14 Church St
Election day on Monday November 28 will mean a second polling station is open in Dorchester, at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre. Elections NB has also arranged for a shuttle to take people from the Tantramar Civic Centre on Main Street in Sackville, over to the Middle Sackville polling station. That shuttle will run every half hour, and will also bring voters back to the Tantramar Civic Center after they vote.
Election day polling
- Monday, November 28, 10am to 8pm, Middle Sackville Baptist Church, 14 Church St
- Monday, November 28, 10am to 8pm, Dorchester Veterans Community Centre, 4955 Main St
What to bring
Elections NB says that everyone who is already on the voters list should have received a Voter Information Card by mail, with all the details for advanced and regular polling days.
Voters are not required to show ID to vote, unless they are NOT on the voters list. To get added at the polling station, you will need one or more pieces of ID to shows your name, address, and signature. … Continue
Mystery elections flyer which broke rules likely came from department of local government
Elections NB didn’t send it, the town of Sackville didn’t send it… so the question is, who sent an elections flyer to addresses all over the new Tantramar municipality? While the Department of Local Government refuses to answer that question, a complaint to the New Brunswick RCMP by Elections NB may lead to an answer.
The mailer certainly appears to be a well-intentioned, if not by-the-book, correction for an earlier mistake by Elections NB. Early in October, residents in Tantramar received notices from the provincial elections agency telling them they would NOT be voting in municipal elections on November 28. That was, of course, an error, and a big one.
A mix up by a contractor handling the mail out of important election information for Elections NB meant that about 260,000 households got exactly the opposite message they should have received. The reality is, all residents of the former town of Sackville, village of Dorchester, and parts of the Dorchester, Sackville and Point de Bute local service districts, can go to the polls by November 28 to elect the first ever mayor and council for the newly amalgamated town of Tantramar.
Elections NB immediately acknowledged their mistake, but also said that a corrected mailer to the homes in question would not be forthcoming, in part due to supply chain issues.… Continue
Elections NB dumps Civic Centre in favour of Middle Sackville church for voting in first Tantramar election
A Sackville resident is concerned about the location of the polling station for the municipal election happening on November 28, 2022.
In the past, polling stations for Sackville elections have been held at the Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre, but for this first election of the new Tantramar council, the main polling station for all advanced and election day polls will be at the Middle Sackville Baptist Church across from Silver Lake. On election day, November 28, there will also be a second polling station at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre.
Sackvillian Alice Cotton says she and some others she’s spoken to are concerned about the location at the Middle Sackville Baptist Church for two key reasons. The first has to do with the use of a church for the polling station. “The church and the state need to be separate,” says Cotton. “We just would not be voting in a church.”
The other reason has to do with accessibility. “There’s a lot of people on the other side of the highway, ” says Cotton, “who don’t have cars, who can’t make it to that poll easily.”
Following ‘mix-up,’ voters may receive notices falsely stating no election in November: Elections NB
Local government elections are slated to take place on November 28 across the province, including for the new Town of Tantramar.
But local residents may receive a notice in the mail stating incorrectly that no election is taking place.
And in parts of the province where, in fact, no election is planned, residents may receive the opposite information.
That’s because of a “mix-up” involving a quarter of a million households, according to a statement issued by the government agency on Wednesday.
“A mix-up in the name on files sent to the vendor who printed the content and packaged the envelopes for Elections NB resulted in over 260,000 households being sent the wrong election message,” the statement said.
“The mistake, introduced after the files were sent to the supplier, was not caught by us during the proofing process,” chief electoral officer Kim Poffenroth added.
Several communities don’t have elections scheduled in November, including Belledune, Dieppe, Moncton, Saint John, and about a dozen other places.
That’s either because they were unaffected by municipal reform, or their total number of voters will increase by less than 15 per cent.
But Sackville, Dorchester and other communities that will be merged into the future Town of Tantramar are not on that list.
At least one Sackville resident told CHMA she had received one of the erroneous notices by Wednesday.
Voters and candidates with questions about the November election can contact Elections NB at 1-888-858-VOTE.
More information about the election is available on the Elections NB website.… Continue
Commission to consider future of Memramcook-Tantramar and other provincial ridings seeking input
The commission that will decide New Brunswick’s next election ridings has announced a round of public consultations over the next month, but they won’t be targeted at communities where changed boundaries are likely to be proposed.
The Electoral boundaries commission will tour through 12 locations in the province, chosen to provide “the widest access possible to as many citizens who may wish to make a presentation to the commission,” according to an emailed statement from commission staff.
Mount Allison politics professor Mario Levesque says the level of consultation is not enough.
“They need to at least double the sessions they have across the province to get better input,” says Levesque. He says he understands the inclination to save time and costs in having less thorough coverage, “but this is something I think that’s significant enough, more would be better overall.”
The closest consultation happening for residents of Memramcook-Tantramar is in Moncton at the Delta Beausejour on September 1, from 6pm to 9pm. There are also two virtual sessions that require pre-registration, happening September 1 and 12.
The last time a commission looked at provincial riding boundaries was in 2012-2013, when the riding of Memramcook-Tantramar was created. And this riding could be up for another change before the next election in 2024.… Continue
After student voter suppression, union calls for more training and an apology
Student vote suppression can’t be rectified, but lessons will be learned for next time, says Elections NB
A Mount Allison student leader says she’s heard mostly negative feedback from students about participating in last Monday’s provincial election in Sackville.
Mount Allison Students’ Union VP Sydney Thorburn set up a survey last week asking students to share their experience voting. The survey asks when and where students voted, how satisfied they were with the experience, and includes space for students to give a detailed description of their experience, if they feel comfortable. Thorburn says the intention is to bring those testimonials from students directly to Elections NB.
“We don’t feel comfortable with ourselves if we let this go and don’t follow up with it,” says Thorburn. “Just so much unfortunate and outright bad things happened on Monday towards students—that suppressed the student vote—so that we feel the strong need to follow up with them.”
Thorburn says she hopes that future elections will see more training for staff at polling stations, especially training focussed on the rules as they apply to university students.
On Monday, dozens and possibly hundreds of students were either turned away or advised that they were breaking the law if they proceeded to vote.… Continue