2014 New Brunswick general election

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49 seats in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick 25 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	64.65% [1]
Majority party Minority party   Leader Brian Gallant David Alward Party Liberal Progressive Conservative Leader since October 27, 2012 October 18, 2008 Leader's seat Shediac Bay-Dieppe Carleton Last election 13 seats, 34.42% 42 seats, 48.84% Seats before 13 41 Seats won 27 21 Seat change 14 20 Percentage 42.73% 34.65% Swing 8.31pp 14.19pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader David Coon Dominic Cardy Party Green New Democratic Leader since September 22, 2012 March 2, 2011 Leader's seat Fredericton South ran in Fredericton West-Hanwell (lost) Last election 0 seats, 4.54% 0 seats, 10.41% Seats before 0 0 Seats won 1 0 Seat change 1 Percentage 6.61% 12.98% Swing 2.07pp 2.57pp
Popular vote by riding. As this is an FPTP election, seat totals are not determined by popular vote, but instead via results by each riding.
Premier before election David Alward Progressive Conservative Premier after election Brian Gallant Liberal

The 2014 New Brunswick general election was held on September 22, 2014, to elect 49 members to the 58th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, the governing house of the province of New Brunswick, Canada.

The 2013 redistribution reduced the size of the legislature from 55 seats to 49.

The New Brunswick Liberal Association, led by Brian Gallant, won a majority government, defeating Incumbent Premier David Alward's Progressive Conservatives, which became the second single-term government in New Brunswick's history.^[2] The New Democratic Party, led by Dominic Cardy won the highest support in its history, though failed to win any seats. As a result of these losses, both Alward and Cardy resigned as leaders of their respective parties.^[2][3] The Green Party of New Brunswick improved on its results from the previous election, with party leader David Coon winning the party's first seat, and becoming only the second Green politician (after British Columbia MLA Andrew J. Weaver) elected to a provincial legislature.^[2]

Fracking was a major issue in the election as a whole. Most commentators described the election as a referendum on it.^[4][5]

Polling in the weeks leading up to the campaign gave the Liberals a wide lead over the governing Progressive Conservatives. Some commentators openly speculated about whether the Liberals were on track to repeat the 1987 provincial election, when they won every seat in the Legislative Assembly.^[6] As the campaign progressed, however, the gap in popular support between the two parties narrowed significantly. Some attributed this in part to a television interview with CBC New Brunswick anchor Harry Forestell in which Gallant gave inaccurate numbers relating to his proposal for a tax increase on the province's wealthiest residents.^[7] In the final poll of the campaign, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives were tied at 40 per cent support each.^[8]

Timeline

• September 27, 2010 – The Progressive Conservatives under David Alward win 42 of 55 seats. The Liberals are reduced to 13 seats and Shawn Graham announces that he will step down as leader.^[9]
• October 25, 2010 – NDP leader Roger Duguay resigns. He was replaced by interim leader Jesse Travis.^[10]
• November 9, 2010 – Liberal leader Shawn Graham resigns. He was replaced on an interim basis by Victor Boudreau and was permanently replaced by Brian Gallant in late 2012.
• March 2, 2011 – Dominic Cardy is acclaimed as the new leader of the NDP.^[11]
• September 12, 2011 – Green leader Jack Macdougall resigns. He was replaced by interim leader Greta Doucet.
• May 16, 2012 – Resignation of Margaret-Ann Blaney as MLA of Rothesay.^[12]
• June 25, 2012 – Ted Flemming is elected MLA for Rothesay, following the resignation of Margaret-Ann Blaney.
• September 20, 2012 - Jim Parrott is expelled from the PC caucus after making statements questioning linguistic duality in the healthcare system.^[13]
• September 22, 2012 - David Coon is elected new leader of the Green Party.^[14]
• October 27, 2012 - Brian Gallant is elected leader of the New Brunswick Liberal Party.
• March 11, 2013 - Shawn Graham resigns as member for Kent.
• April 15, 2013 – Brian Gallant is elected MLA for Kent, following the resignation of Shawn Graham.
• June 6, 2013 - New electoral districts are finalized and will take effect at this election.^[15]
• April 30, 2014 - Jim Parrott rejoins PC caucus.^[16]
• June 27, 2014 - PC MLA Bev Harrison announces he will seek re-election as a New Democrat,^[17] he leaves the PC caucus to sit as an independent.^[18]
• August 18, 2014 - Premier Alward meets with Lieutenant-Governor Graydon Nicholas who grants the premier's request to dissolve the legislature effective August 21, 2014 for a general election to be held September 22, 2014.^[19]
• August 21, 2014 - New Brunswick legislature dissolved by the lieutenant-governor.^[19]
• September 22, 2014 - general election.^[19]

Results

Summary of the 2014 Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick election results

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats
					2010	Dissolution	Elected	Change
	Liberal	158,848	42.73	+8.30	13	13	27	+14
	Progressive Conservative	128,801	34.65	-14.20	42	41	21	-21
	Green	24,582	6.61	+2.07	0	0	1	+1
	New Democratic	48,257	12.98	+2.57	0	0	0	±0
	People's Alliance	7,964	2.14	+0.97	–	0	0	±0
	Independents	3,293	0.89	+0.28	0	1	0	±0
Total		371,745	100.00	–	55	55	49	-6

Tabulator problem and manual recount demand

The election marked the first time that the province used electronic vote tabulation machines from Dominion Voting in a provincial election. They had previously been used in New Brunswick municipal elections.^[2] On election night, the machines displayed vote totals which were verified by Elections New Brunswick officials and entered into a province-wide database for the media. By 11:45 PM, these unverified numbers were to have been replaced by totally machine-reported numbers from the tabulators themselves with no human interventions or errors possible to distort results. It was "a program processing the initial results that had a glitch", not the tabulators themselves, according to officials.^[20]

Elections New Brunswick grew uncomfortable with the human involvement and influence of the unevenly tabulated results. It brought the results reporting to a standstill as counts were reverified by hand before further resignations or concessions were triggered.

At 10:45 p.m. Atlantic time, Elections New Brunswick officially suspended the results reporting count, with 17 ridings still undeclared, while it investigated the delay.^[21] It called for over sixty tabulator count devices to be brought to central locations for verification without relying on the reporting program. At no time was there an allegation of fraud by any party or public official.

As a result of the controversy, both the Progressive Conservatives and the People's Alliance Party called for a hand count of all ballots, with the former refusing to concede the election until the following day.^[2] Michael Quinn, the province's chief electoral officer determined no total recount was necessary.^[2] Recounts were held in 7 of 49 ridings and the results were upheld with variations of no more than 1 vote per candidate per riding.^[22]

Results by region

Results by place

Opinion polls

Retiring incumbents

The following sitting members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) had announced that they would not re-offer at this election:

Progressive Conservatives

• John Betts, MLA for Moncton Crescent (1999–2014)^[23]
• Jack Carr, MLA for New Maryland-Sunbury West (2008–2014)^[24]
• Greg Davis, MLA for Campbellton-Restigouche Centre (2010–2014)^[25]
• Dale Graham, MLA for Carleton (1995–2014) and Carleton North (1993–1995)^[26]
• Wes McLean, MLA for Victoria-Tobique (2010–2014)^[27]
• Wayne Steeves, MLA for Albert (1999–2014)^[28]
• Glen Tait, MLA for Saint John East (2010–2014)^[29]

Liberals

• Roland Haché, MLA for Nigadoo-Chaleur (1999–2014)^[30]

Candidates

New boundaries were in effect as a result of an electoral redistribution replacing the districts used in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Candidates had to file their nomination papers by September 2, 2014 to appear on the ballot.^[31]

Legend

• bold denotes cabinet minister or party leader
• italics denotes a potential candidate who has not received his/her party's nomination
• † denotes an incumbent who is not running for re-election
• * denotes an incumbent seeking re-election in a new district

Northern

Miramichi

Southeastern

Southern

Capital Region

Upper River Valley