5 candidates contest Rothesay byelection

There are five candidates running in the byelection to replace Margaret-Ann Blaney as the MLA for Rothesay, according to Elections New Brunswick.

Nominations closed on Friday at 2 p.m. for the June 25 vote in the southern New Brunswick town.

Progressive Conservative Hugh John (Ted) Flemming III will try to keep the seat for the Tories. Itwas vacated when Blaney left politics to take the job as the president and chief executive officer of Efficiency New Brunswick.

John Wilcox, a retired police officer, is running for the Liberals. Meanwhile, New Democratic Party Leader Dominic Cardy will be running in the riding to try and win his partys first seat in the legislature since 2005.

As well, Sharon Murphy will be running in the riding again for the Green Party and Marjorie MacMurray will be on the ballot as an Independent candidate.

Michael Quinn, the provinces chief electoral officer, said the transition to a byelection has gone smoothly considering the municipal elections wrapped up less than a month ago.

"Its gone very well because the procedures are much the same [as for the municipal elections]. So we have a lot offreshly-trained people," he said.

"A byelection is a straight-forward event compared to province-wide municipal elections, regional health authority elections and district education council elections."

9 votes already cast

While the byelection is still more than two weeks away and advance polls are set forJune 16 and 18, some Rothesay voters have already cast their ballots.

Quinn said there have been nine people who have already voted using write-in ballots.

Anyone can vote by a write-in ballot at the local returning office, but they need to know the name of the candidate.

"You write or print the name of the candidate that you want to vote for. If that candidate files nomination papers on time then your vote counts for that candidate," he said.

"If they vote for a candidate who is not in fact officially nominated, then that vote doesnt count."

Quinn said Elections New Brunswick tries to make voting easy, especially during byelections.

"There are always a lot of people on the move and going out of town and byelections happen very quickly," he said.