Elections NB drums up interest in municipal elections

Elections New Brunswick is touring the province, trying to drum up interest and get people to run in the May 14 elections.

New Brunswick voters will be electing mayors and councillors as well as representatives for district education councils and regional health authorities in the upcoming election.

Mike Quinn, the provinces chief electoral officer, is visiting local communities andlooking for potential candidates.

Quinn stopped at a Rotary Club in Saint John on Monday, where he asked people to also think about potential candidates.

"Then you are talking with people who are networked into the community and they're obviously people who have a great interest in what goes on in the community," he said.

Saint John usually has little trouble finding people to run and there is already a guaranteed contest for mayor.

Ivan Court is running for a second term and Graeme Stewart-Robertson, a 27-year-old project manager, has also indicated his interest in running.

But there could be problems attracting candidatesin other local races. There are more than 100 communities that will be electing local representatives on May 14.

In the 2008 municipal elections, there were no candidatesfor 10 council positions.

And 70 per cent of English-language district education council positions had to be appointed or filled by acclamation.

Quinn said Elections New Brunswick was forced to call by-elections in the municipalities where no one stood for election.

"When we held those by-elections there were all kinds of people that came forward, and they were all filled. So that leads us to believe that there wasn't enough awareness in advance of those elections to convince people to put their name forward," he said.

The deadline to file nomination papers is April 13.