N.B. eyes lowering legal voting age to 16

‘BALLOT QUESTION’

FREDERICTON • Voting at 16 years old. Giving some non-citizens the vote. A preferential ballot.

New Brunswick’s Commission on Electoral Reform issued 24 sweeping recommendations Friday to the way people vote in the province.

One commission member suggested a preferential ballot could be in place by next year’s election, but Premier Brian Gallant said he won’t make major reforms without first putting it to a referendum or seeking a mandate from voters in an election.

Under a preferential ballot, voters choose their top candidate and then rank their second, third, and further choices. Those choices would come into play if no one was able to get 51 per cent of the vote on the first ballot.

Commission member Bev Harrison said such a system tends to take some of the nastiness out of elections.

“This is an opportunity for candidates to be more civilized in their approach, because you are trying to get second- and third-ballot support in case you don’t make it the first time,” he said.

Harrison — a former MLA and speaker of the legislature — said he thinks government could put that change in place for the next provincial election in September, 2018, and look at further changes later.

“The preferential ballot is do-able in the immediate, and mixed-member proportional — which a lot of New Brunswickers certainly support — is something that would have to be more incremental and tied to the redistribution of seats,” Harrison said.

But Gallant said such a change would need the approval of voters.

“Any government would have to have a clear mandate from the people of New Brunswick to make that type of change. A mandate could be sought through a referendum, and it could be sought through a political party’s platform,” Gallant said Friday.

Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs agrees.

“The Official Opposition believes that any changes to our democracy must be decided democratically through a referendum or ballot question. Democratic reform has to be democratic,” he said.

The premier said he had not yet read the report and his government would need time to examine all the recommendations, including the call for a lower voting age.

“I think ... New Brunswickers have to have more people voting. There’s no doubt it would have a significant impact on the number of people able to vote, so we have to take some time to think about that and to look at how we will respond as a government,” Gallant said.

Committee member Jason Alcorn said the entire committee was in favour of e-voting, until they heard from experts concerned about security, confidentiality and privacy.

“I think it would be irresponsible on our part to recommend moving in that direction until such time as we have assurances that we can really have a safe, secure system,” Alcorn said.