Statement from Chief Electoral Officer Kim Poffenroth

Re: Polling Station Shediac-Cap-Acadie
Issued:  August 29, 2024

As New Brunswick’s trusted election source, we wish to correct inaccurate information that is being circulated in the public and being shared with the media about the selection of an Election Day polling station in the new electoral district of Shediac-Cap-Acadie.

The specific complaint is about the decision made by the returning officer to locate a polling station in the community of Cormier Village for the October provincial general election.  Some individuals from the neighbouring community of Saint-Andre-LeBlanc are inaccurately stating this polling station was “taken” from them.  

This is simply not accurate. Just because a particular building may have been used during a previous election, it does not guarantee that it will be used for every election thereafter. It is not unusual for polling station locations to change between elections because of availability accessibility requirements, or other reasons.

As many people are aware, there are new boundaries in place for the October 2024 election created by the Electoral Boundaries and Representation Commission in its final report of March 2023.  As such, this means all electors are living in new ridings in the next election, and many will find themselves voting in different polling stations. 

Our geography unit worked closely with the returning officers to redesign the polling divisions within each electoral district based on the new boundaries and the groupings of electors that will report to each polling station. In the case involving Shediac-Cap-Acadie, electors in Cormier Village and Saint-André-LeBlanc are in the same geographic grouping, as was the case in the 2020 provincial general election.  As in 2020, all electors in Cormier Village and Saint-André-LeBlanc will vote at the same polling location on Election Day.

As you will see in the map we have included, the distance between the polling station selected in Cormier Village and the community of Saint-André-LeBlanc is 5 kilometers. That represents roughly a four-minute drive. We respectfully submit it is not unreasonable to expect citizens who live in rural settings to have to travel for some services. Nor is it reasonable to expect that we would open a polling station in every community across the province.