New Brunswick electoral reform consultation including Internet voting

You can submit comments or submit your name to be an expert witness e.g. by email to Consultations.ECO-BCE@gnb.ca
The deadline is November 30, 2016.

The New Brunswick Commission on Electoral Reform consultation page states

The commission has been given the following mandates:

  • Assess commitments made by the provincial government in 2014 to contribute to making a more effective Legislature by:
    – eliminating barriers to entering politics for underrepresented groups; and
    – investigating means to improve participation in democracy, such as preferential ballots and online voting.
  • Assess other electoral reform matters that have been raised recently, namely:
    – the voting age;
    – political contribution rules; and
    – political spending rules.

To its credit (and unlike the Federal electoral reform consultation) the NB government has issued a discussion paper, which includes two pages covering Internet voting reasonably well.

The discussion paper is called “Strengthening New Brunswick’s Democracy” and is available from the Government of New Brunswick website (GNB.ca) at
http://www.gnb.ca/legis/business/currentsession/58/58-2/LegDoc/Eng/58-2July/SNBD.pdf
The Internet voting section is pages 18-19.

For the French version of the discussion paper, see
Vote par Internet – de la page 20 à la page 21 dans « Renforcer la démocratie au Nouveau-Brunswick » (PDF)

The discussion paper is also available in print bilingual and in PDFs in both official languages, here are the ISBNs
ISBN 978-1- 4605-1033-9 (Print Bilingual)
ISBN 978-1- 4605-1034-6 (PDF English)
ISBN 978-1- 4605-1035-3 (PDF French)

The Commissioners have been announced in a November 9, 2016 press release

The individuals are Carolyn MacKay, Bev Harrison, Gaétane Johnson, Jason Alcorn and Constantine Passaris.

None of the commissioners has a technical (computer science) background.

According to a July 2016 news release

It is expected that hearings will take place in the fall [2016] with a report due by early 2017. The plan is to allow for any changes to be implemented in advance of the 2018 general election.

However the November 9, 2016 press release makes no mention of hearings, and says just

The public has been encouraged to participate in the process by reading the discussion paper Strengthening New Brunswick’s Democracy and submitting comments. The information received will be compiled and analyzed by the commission. Recommendations will be submitted to the clerk of the Executive Council by March 1, 2017.

This posting adapted and expanded from original on legacy blog http://papervotecanada.blogspot.ca/2016/07/new-brunswick-launches-voting.html

One thought on “New Brunswick electoral reform consultation including Internet voting”

  1. Pingback: Brief submitted to New Brunswick Commission on Electoral Reform – November 2016 – Paper Vote Canada 2

Comments are closed.