[EL] New Brunswick is Canada's Florida?

[Rob Richie]

It looks like this problem has been resolved, and New Brunswick has a new
Liberal Party premier who is just 32 (!) years old.

The real glitch here is that the winner-take-all system once again has
given absolute control to a party that fell well short of a majority - the
Liberals won 42% of votes, but 55% of seats.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/new-brunswick-votes-2014/new-brunswick-election-2014-results-brian-gallant-s-liberals-set-for-transition-after-win-1.2774901

This presents an interesting contrast with New Zealand, where its
conservative coalition government was returned for a third term in
elections on Saturday. The National Party won 48% of votes, an historic
high for one party since it moved from winner-take-all to the mixed member
proportional system in a 1993 referendum, and has won a slim majority of
seats of 61 out of 120 due primarily to the Conservative Party just missing
out on parliament by falling short of 5%. But rather than try to rule on
its own, National will keep working with other parties and have its
governance be grounded in real majority support. Wikipedia covers it
decently at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_general_election,_2014

Rob



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On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 11:32 PM, David Lublin <dlublin at american.edu> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues:
>
> In tonight's provincial election, New Brunswick had problems with
> electronic voting machines. The incomplete tally at just before midnight
> (their time) shows the Liberals with a one seat majority and the
> Progressive-Conservatives have already called for a hand recount:
>
>
> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/new-brunswick-votes-2014/new-brunswick-election-vote-count-stalls-with-liberals-and-pcs-in-dead-heat-1.2774357
>
> And now, as I am writing this, the results have changed to the Liberals
> with a clearer 27 seat majority.
>
> After listening to the Chief Electoral Officer do an interview on CBC,
> there appears to have been a glitch of some sort but they are unsure right
> now as to the cause. (He was not the height of clarity.) Additionally, some
> memory cards are still out in the province and have not yet been received
> by Elections NB.
>
> I am not 100% clear if voters cast ballots on electronic systems with
> printed back up or a paper ballot that is then fed into an electronic
> tabulator. It appears to be the second, as the Elections NB site indicates
> that they vote on paper ballots (which the news seems to indicate are then
> fed into some sort of electronic reader):
>
> http://www1.gnb.ca/elections/en/faq/faq-e.asp?CATEGORYID=18&TYPE=2
>
> Here is the little info on the Elections NB website about "technology" in
> voting:
>
> http://www1.gnb.ca/elections/en/faq/faq-e.asp?CATEGORYID=5&TYPE=2
>
> Best,
>
> David Lublin
>
> --
> David Lublin
> Professor of Government
> School of Public Affairs
> American University
> 4400 Massachusetts Ave.
> Washington, D.C. 20016
> http://davidlublin.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
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>
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