Municipal by-elections filling 12 spots in election, four acclaimed

N.B. hosts several municipal by-elections There are vacancies on councils in nine communities across New Brunswick, prompting a series of by-elections.

Dave Morrison, the mayor of Hanwell, N.B., is looking forward to having a full slate of councillors.

They're filling three vacancies.

"One happened very early on in the start of the term,” Morrison said. “Then we had two rather recent resignations. We were here with three vacancies. One was filled by acclamation.

“One at-large (position) and ward four are being filled by the election process."

There were 17 open positions across New Brunswick heading into the municipal by-elections: Four were acclaimed, one remains unfilled, and the remaining 12 will have results Monday evening.

"I think in some of these communities trying to find people willing to give up a lot of their time to do it is becoming more and more difficult,” said Jamie Gillies, a political scientist at St. Thomas University. “Because simply because people have less and less time.”

“We're about average right now for the number of vacancies that are open for this election,” said Daniel Owens with Elections NB.

It's the first by-election since municipal reform elections took place last fall.

"Our ranges are considerable,” Owens said. “Tracy has about 400 electors eligible to vote today and Riverview has about 15,000, so overall there's about 31,000 people province-wide.”

So far, the municipal by-election voter turnout is around 12 per cent.

"There's not that much interest because it's not coinciding with a provincial election or a federal election,” Gillies said. “So sometimes turn out is very low, 10-to-15 per cent of voters in certain areas

Hanwell is among the nine communities voting Monday.

"We'll be able to spread the load around a little bit,” Morrison said. “Hopefully these people stepping forward are here for the right reasons and they're going to put their shoulder to the wheel and move Hanwell forward and get things done that we want to get done to better the community.”

Polls close at 8 p.m. Monday and Elections NB will publish results as they become available.

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.