New Brunswick: A different kind of election night

Whether you are watching on TV, listening on radio or following online, be prepared for a very different kind of election night than we’ve ever had before in a provincial election.

Elections New Brunswick is using electronic vote counting with a system of 713 tabulators spread across the province.

Some ridings, such as Carleton-York, have as many as 32 tabulator machines. Others, such as Moncton Centre, have just nine machines.

The expectation according to elections officials is that the results from the ridings will come far faster than ever before.

In fact, the tabulation machines containing the advanced vote — some 69,529 ballots — will be turned on 15 minutes before the polls close at 8 p.m. AT. It’s expected that those results from all 49 ridings will be reported and broadcast as soon as three minutes after the polls close.

It usually takes up to half an hour before we’ve got a report from every riding using the traditional methods of vote counting.

What it all means is that just minutes after the polls close we are going to have a very good idea of who is going to win this election.

But, CBC News is not going to make any projections about a winning party or winning candidates based only on the advanced vote. We are going to wait to see some results from the thousands of people who voted on election day before we make any calls.

It won’t be a long wait. Elections New Brunswick says the tabulator machines with the ballots from election day will begin reporting at 20 minutes after 8 p.m. and the numbers should come in fast.

The reason we wait to see the vote from ballots cast on election day is that campaigns matter.

And, in this campaign polls have been showing that the race has been getting closer in the final days. That might mean that people who vote later and on election day are casting ballots much differently than those who voted days ago in advance polls.

So, CBC News will wait to make sure we get it right.

Another big difference the audience will notice on election night is that no one will be talking about polls in ridings.

Usually, the results are reported poll-by-poll. In this election, we are going to get our ballot results reported by tabulator.

Each tabulator is going to contain several polls. So if a very close race in a riding comes down to the wire, we won’t be waiting for a final poll to be counted, we’ll be waiting instead for the final tabulator to report.

If all this works, according the Election New Brunswick's plan, then this should be a pretty quick election night. It might also become a pattern for future elections across Canada. 

The voting machine system saves time and saves money. They are already used successfully in many jurisdictions, and in municipalities across Canada, including the City of Toronto.

The days of hours-long election night news specials waiting for results to slowly trickle in are quickly becoming a thing of the past.