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.
Those supply chain issues did not seem to affect whoever sent out thousands of flyers across Tantramar in the first week of November, with accurate but incomplete information about the election.
The November flyer includes a ward map taken directly from the Elections NB website, as well as voting eligibility guidelines and important dates, such as the closing of the nomination period on October 28, which had already passed by the time the notices were mailed.
But what was missing from the flyer was the location of the Tantramar polling station, at the Middle Sackville Baptist Church, right beside Silver Lake. Also missing: the name or identify of whoever printed and distributed the flyer, a requirement under the Municipal Elections Act.
Elections NB spokesperson Paul Harpelle says that based on the photos of the flyer Elections NB has received, the mailout is a possible violation of the Municipal Elections Act, which requires that any printed material related to an election identify the person who published it. Harpelle says the Chief Electoral Officer, Kim Poffenroth, has contacted the Sackville RCMP to initiate a complaint. Sackville RCMP say they are investigating that complaint.
So who sent it? Mayoral candidate Shawn Mesheau says that he and council candidate Matt Estabrooks, with support from the elected officials advisory committee they both sit on, had approached the department and their appointed facilitator Chad Peters with their concern over the botched Elections NB mailout. Mesheau said via email, “They agreed to issue a flyer to mailboxes within the new community to clarify election information.”
Vicky Lutes, a spokesperson for the department of local government, did not take responsibility for the mailer, indicating that either the town of Sackville or village of Dorchester executed the operation. “As is the case through the province,” wrote Lutes via email, “local transition committees have been encouraged to communicate to their residents. The cost is reimbursed to the local government that places the order and pays the bill. This is the case in this instance.”
Special projects manager for the town of Sackville, Kieran Miller, confirms that the town did not undertake the mailout. Dorchester CAO Jennifer Borne did not respond to a question about whether or not she or the village of Dorchester staff produced the flyer. Lutes has also not responded to follow up questions on the actual source of the mailer, and the reason it violated the Municipal Elections Act.
For their part, Elections NB says that all eligible electors who are having an election will receive voter information in the mail this week telling them exactly where and when they can vote.
