No one on the ballot in some races as registration deadline looms for N.B. elections

With the deadline to register as a candidate for next month's local government elections coming up on Friday at 2:00 p.m., there are still 48 positions with no one running.

There are 455 spots in total on ballots for newly-amalgamated communities and rural district advisory committees as well as byelections in some long-established communities where changes have been made because of local governance reform.

Joey Bernard is running for a council seat in the newly-created Sunbury-York South race, which has seats for a mayor and councillors. Bernard has been approaching people in the area and asking them to run. 

He sees it as a chance for citizens of newly-formed communities to make change.

"People have the biggest opportunity to affect the way local government is going to operate now, because now is when everything's being set up," Bernard said. 

"After that, there will be history, there will be precedents, and it will be harder to make any meaningful changes."

As of Tuesday evening, 24 mayoral races have only one candidate, and so far no one has registered to run for mayor of Three Rivers.

This is sad, but not surprising, said Bernard, who sat on the New Maryland local service district advisory committee for more than half a decade. 

He said the process is moving very quickly.

"We're doing the entire province [at once]. That's a lot of work being put on provincial staff. And a lot of changes happening that, you know, normal citizens just don't have the time to keep up with."

Joanna Everitt, a professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, said the number of candidates elected via acclamation will lead to low voter turnout. 

"For many of these communities, they've not had the opportunity of having representation in the past, they were the local service districts, which were kind of unrepresented," she said.

Political engagement from these citizens will take time, said Everitt. People in smaller communities need to become used to having the kind of representation available in larger urban centres, she said, then they'll be more willing to step into those leadership positions. 

Kim Poffenroth, the chief electoral officer for Elections New Brunswick, said it's still a game of wait and see.