Thank you for your question.
In the case of an unscheduled election in New Brunswick, the period can be anywhere from 28 to 38 days.
The 28-day election period presented us with a number of challenges. Some of them would have been presented regardless of the pandemic.
Setting up a modern election office with all of the technology and telecommunications that are required was very challenging with our service provider. We had a 28-day election period and we were at the end of the second week of that four-week period before every office had phone and Internet. Given that we used a digital voters list, allowing people to vote early was challenging because we didn't have access to that digital list. Receiving calls requesting mail-in ballots was a problem.
With the COVID challenges, of course, there was a large increase in the volume of requests for mail-in ballots. We require a signed application; they can't be sent by email. A lot of people who weren't leaving their homes didn't have access to printers, email and whatnot, so getting those requests, processing them, sending out the ballots and getting those ballots back in a 28-day period proved very challenging.
The only word I can come up with is “unfortunate”, which I think is an understatement when it comes to one's franchise and the importance of the vote. We know that ballots arrived late. They arrived too late for people to get them back in time. That was a challenge.
Certainly, if it were my choice I would select a 38-day election period.