The Mount Allison Students Union has issued an apology after releasing incorrect municipal election information on social media.
It was the latest in a series of mix-ups during the municipal election cycle, which was also marked by erroneous mailouts from Elections NB and a mysterious flyer that appears to have violated the Municipal Elections Act.
The mistake meant that some students were unable to vote, according to MASU. It’s unclear how many people were actually affected.
Municipal elections took place on Monday, forming the first-ever council for the new town of Tantramar.
But some would-be student voters were led astray by “Municipal Election GOVT [get out the vote] posts on Instagram” that contained “misinformation” about election times, according to a statement from MASU.
Opening and closing times for the local polling site were essentially reversed, a MASU official said in an email.
“The substance of the error was quite basic, it seems that the time was posted was “7 [a.m.]-10 p.m.” rather than “10 [a.m.]-7:30pm” (which was the accurate time),” said Suchet Mittal, VP Communications and Marketing.
“As far as I am aware, we only received one official complaint which was received over Instagram. However, we are aware that other students were also affected by the issue, although the actual numbers we have only reach 3-5 students. We predict the actual impact was closer to 10-12 students being impacted, as best we can estimate without any real data.”
MASU offered “sincere apologies” for the posts, and attributed the mistake to human error.
Municipal elections in New Brunswick, the product of sweeping local governance reforms, were marked by confusion from the start.
In October, just as the process got underway, Elections NB issued notices with false information to more than a quarter of a million households about whether or not an election would actually take place locally.
Local residents received notices in the mail stating incorrectly that no election was happening in the area. And in parts of the province where, in fact, no election was planned, residents received the opposite information.
Then, in the first week of November, thousands of flyers were sent across Tantramar with accurate but incomplete information about the election.
The November flyers included a ward map, voting eligibility guidelines and key dates.
But they didn’t include the location of the Tantramar polling station or the identify of whomever printed and distributed the flyer, a requirement under the Municipal Elections Act. So far, nobody has taken responsibility for the flyers.
