Newfoundland and Labrador municipal elections, 2013

[Hatman 🍁]

Newfies go to the polls a week from today to elect local mayors and councillors.

Map of municipalities on the island:




The main race is in St. John's between Former Tory MHA and incumbent mayor Dennis O'Keefe and councillor Sheilagh O'Leary who was endorsed by the federal NDP last year (very unusual for a federal party to actually endorse a municipal candidate!) So, we have an old fashioned Tory-NDP duel.  O'Leary is a popular councillor, as she topped the At-Large list in the last elections.

St. John's has 5 wards, which elects one councillor each, plus 4 councillors are elected at-large. They also have a separate election for deputy mayor as well as mayor. Elections St. John's was nice enough to send me the mayoral results by ward from the last election (data not online) by email, so I can post maps later.

[Hatman 🍁]

O'Keefe won all 5 wards in 2009, defeating Ron Ellsworth 57-37. Ellsworth is running for Deputy Mayor this time, which is an open seat, vacated by former Tory MHA Shannie Duff.

Results map for mayor (2009):



Race was closest in Ward 4, which O'Keefe won 49-45.  That ward includes Memorial University, and is one of the least Tory friendly parts of the city.  The area covers some NDP friendly areas provincially as well, including much of St. John's North and St. John's East which are both held by the NDP.

[MaxQue]

Wonderful, Earl. Are the grey area are administrated by any local government?

Also, I suppose than I should create or just revive a thread for Quebec municipal elections.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wonderful, Earl. Are the grey area are administrated by any local government?

Not that I know of. They're all unorganized subdivisions- although that doesn't mean they are uninhabited.

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Not a bad idea. There's also Alberta municipals as well coming up.

[Hatman 🍁]

I want to make a correction, O'Keefe was never an MHA, but is openly Tory (provincially).

[Hatman 🍁]

Should mention, Abacus did a poll a few weeks ago that showed O'Keefe with a 60-39 lead over O'Leary: http://abacusinsider.com/politics-public-affairs/dennis-okeefe-leads-sheilagh-oleary-race-st-johns-mayor/

Ellsworth has a massive lead in the race for Deputy Mayor against a transgender rights activist.

[Hatman 🍁]

Election is tomorrow. Obligatory blog post mention: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2013/09/newfoundland-and-labrador-municipal.html

[Hatman 🍁]

Long line ups apparently are delaying results in St. John's. No results to report yet.

[Hatman 🍁]

Results in St John's will be released all at once. Apparently a machine will be counting the ballots, so when counting begins it should be pretty quick.

[Hatman 🍁]

O'Keefe wins

[MaxQue]

O'Keefe wins

57-42

[Hatman 🍁]

O'Keefe wins

57-42

Hopefully O'Leary won at least the central ward. Doesn't really matter, though. Also, a big loss for council, as she's no longer on it. Fiscal conservative Ron Ellsworth cleaned up in the Deputy Mayor race.

In other news, Kurtis Coombs finished a distant 3rd in Paradise. He was the 18 year old who lost the same race last election and has spent the last 4 years whining and shooting himself in the foot (rumours was he was holding up the voting process by examining every ballot this time).  You may remember him also running for the provincial NDP in 2011 and giving us one of our worst results in the region.