News Release

FREDERICTON (GNB) – New Brunswickers who want to track election results on Monday, May 9 can follow them on the Elections NB website. The unofficial results will start to be posted after the polls close at 8 p.m.

The results will be posted to the website in stages, starting with an upload of the memory cards from the 140 tabulation machines used at the advance polls. These machines are secured at the returning offices earlier on election day. Those first results are usually available within 20 to 30 minutes of the official poll closing time of 8 p.m., depending on the activity at each returning office. These results are usually followed closely by the results from the memory cards in the tabulation machines at the 23 returning and satellite returning offices.

The 418 tabulation machines used on election day are not connected to the Internet so these results are first called in by telephone from the various voting locations in the province. Then they are manually entered into an online database and combined with the previous memory card results. This results in an unofficial declaration of successful candidates, usually before 10 p.m., depending on the activity at the polling locations and the various returning offices.

“The results, which are called in, are not finalized until the memory card from every tabulation machine has been sent to the returning office and uploaded,” said Michael Quinn, New Brunswick’s municipal electoral officer. “This process will replace the results that were called in manually in order to prevent any human errors in the earlier transmission of results by telephone. In some remote locations, once the poll has been closed and the equipment packed up, which could take an hour, it may take as long as an additional 90 minutes to drive the tabulation machine and memory card back to the returning offices.”

After all the memory cards are uploaded, an updated message will be shown on each website results page. The message will indicate that all results and the elected status as posted are final. This final step was completed at 11:45 p.m. during the last municipal elections in 2012.

The final declaration of results is still subject to review of all documentation by the municipal returning officers on or before declaration day Wednesday, May 11.

A detailed explanation of the reporting process for election results is available online. People can follow the outcome of the election by clicking on the results tab located on the landing page of the website on election day once these results are available.