Chief electoral officer seeks power to hire returning officers, independent from government

New Brunswick's chief electoral officer is proposing dozens of changes to the province's election laws to modernize the way campaigning and voting are administered in the province.

Kim Poffenroth is urging the government to give her agency, Elections New Brunswick, the power to hire returning officers in each of the province's 49 ridings.

At the moment, returning officers are appointed by the government, giving the party in power the ability to choose its own supporters to fill the positions in the year leading up to a campaign.

The 49 returning officers are responsible for administering the vote in each of their ridings.

The legislated requirement to appoint partisan nominees as election officers undermines the impartial and non-partisan role of the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections New Brunswick.- Elections NB discussion paper

"Elections New Brunswick frequently receives complaints that returning officers are appointed on a partisan basis by the government of the day and should be selected in another manner," the discussion paper says.

It noted that New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are the only two provinces where the provincial cabinet has the sole power to choose returning officers.

And it recommended that Elections New Brunswick be given the authority to conduct a "formal competency-based hiring and evaluation process," independently from the government, to recruit them in the future.

Poffenroth presented the discussion paper to a committee of MLAs Tuesday morning. At least one Progressive Conservative minister told Poffenroth that campaign volunteers in his rural riding don't want the returning officer "taken away" and he wants the proposal withdrawn.

"How do I stop this?" asked Public Safety Minister Carl Urquhart.

Urquhart said in his riding of Carleton-York, the returning officer in last year's election was a known Liberal appointee and she was "one of the most respected people in our area."

"We all know that she is appointed by the Liberals when they are in power," he said. "And she knows that she is appointed by the Liberals, and she knows that the People's Alliance, the Green Party and the Conservative people keep a very close eye on her."

Perception a problem

Poffenroth later responded to his comments at a news conference, where she said the returning officer's well-known party affiliation, and the perception it creates, is exactly the problem she wants to correct by creating an independent hiring process.

But she said if any of the proposals fail to get support during consultations, she won't include them in a final package of recommendations later this year.

The discussion paper also recommended ending the requirement of having returning officers appoint polling officers from the government and official opposition parties, which it calls "a relic of the past."

"The legislated requirement to appoint partisan nominees as election officers undermines the impartial and non-partisan role of the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections New Brunswick," it said.

"Further, this requirement unnecessarily and invariably exposes the Chief Electoral Officer and returning office staff to baseless partisan attacks and complaints on the integrity and fairness of the process for hiring returning office and polling staff."

Other recommendations include:

• Ending the ban on campaign advertising on the day of the election and the day before, because social media posts have made it more complicated to enforce and many of the complaints are unwarranted.
• Requiring any party that wants access to the Elections New Brunswick voter list to submit a privacy policy on how it will protect the information.
• Requiring that a byelection for the legislature be held within six months of the seat becoming vacant. The current law says the byelection must be called within six months, but the actual voting day can be set for several months after that.
• Allowing a judge to draw a name of one of the tied candidates when an election and a recount ends in a tie. The current law says the returning officer should cast the deciding vote.
• Allowing voting by mail in municipal byelections and plebiscites held between general municipal election days.

Elections New Brunswick is hoping to get public feedback on the proposals by September and will then make final recommendations to the government.

PC House Leader Glen Savoie told reporters that Urquhart's comments did not represent the government's position on the recommendations. He said the government will listen to the feedback from New Brunswickers before taking a position.