Updated: 03/01/2015

Date of election: September 22, 2014

Seats in the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly: 49 (reduced from 55 in the 2010 election)

Voter Turnout: 65.38%

Official Results of 2014 Election

Elections New Brunswick has released the official results of the 2014 provincial election.

Party	Standings	Current Party Leader
Liberal	27	Brian Gallant
PC	21	Bruce Fitch (Interim Leader)
NDP	0	Dominic Cardy
Green Party	1	David Coon
People's Alliance	0	Kris Austin

Problems With Reporting Results on Election Night

It was supposed to be a different kind of election night in New Brunswick as Elections New Brunswick introduced electronic vote counting. It was the first time electronic tabulators were used at all polling stations in a provincial election, although they had been used successfully in municipal elections. A system of 713 vote tabulators across the province was used to count the New Brunswick votes, and it was expected that the results would come in very quickly.

It was fast to begin with, however a couple of hours after the polls closed, with most votes in and the Liberals leading with a one-seat majority in reported votes, the results stopped. For about 90 minutes. It turned out that Elections New Brunswick staff had noticed that some results being entered manually were not being replaced accurately by results being uploaded from the tabulators' memory cards, and Elections New Brunswick stopped the uploading until they could verify the information.

Results started being uploaded again early into Tuesday morning. Michael Quinn, the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections New Brunswick, said the voting tabulation machines worked well, but a software computing program malfunctioned. Mr. Quinn insists there was no failure in the counting, and the results are accurate.

New Brunswick Liberals Win a Majority

The Liberals led by Brian Gallant ended up winning a decisive majority victory in the 2014 New Brunswick election. Gallant, who is single and just 32, will become the country's youngest premier. New Brunswick has a long tradition of young premiers: Liberal Frank McKenna was 39 when he became Premier and he stepped down after he had the job for 10 years. Progressive Conservative Bernard Lord became Premier at the age of 33 and he was Premier for seven years.

The Liberals dominated the northern, mostly French-speaking part of the province. The Premier-designate has confirmed his plans to put a moratorium on hydro-fracking, and says he will sit down with any companies affected to explain his policy. He has not ruled out fracking in his first term though. He has also re-affirmed his plans to go ahead with a review of unconstitutional barriers to access to abortion. In the election, Gallant and the Liberals promised to rebuild provincial roads and bridges to create jobs.

Progressive Conservatives

The Progressive Conservatives lost 20 seats, and nine cabinet ministers were defeated. The day after the election, David Alward announced his resignation as leader of the New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives, but said he will stay on as MLA for his new riding of Carleton. Mr. Alward and the PCs had centered their campaign on hydro-fracking, claiming that it was a chance to make New Brunswick a "have" province, to create jobs, and to stop the outmigration of young people heading west for work. Unemployment in New Brunswick is currently running at 8.7 percent.

New Democratic Party

Although the New Democratic Party got its highest support ever in a new Brunswick election, they still did not win a seat. Dominic Cardy has said he will resign as New Brunswick NDP leader at the party convention later in the fall of 2014.

Green Party

Green Party Leader David Coon won a seat in the riding of Fredericton South. It's the first time the Green Party has won a seat in the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, and only the second time a Green Party MLA has been elected in a provincial election in Canada. David Coon managed to defeat the PC Energy Minister Craig Leonard. Mr. Coon credited his win to people in his riding being upset with the government's deal with forestry companies and civil servants unhappy with changes to the government pension plan.

People's Alliance Comes Close

The People's Alliance is the newest political party in New Brunswick and only in its second election. Leader and co-founder Kris Austin came very close to winning the new riding of Fredericton - Grand Lake, losing to Progressive Conservative Pam Lynch by only 26 votes. Recounts are automatic at the 25 vote mark, but Austin has gone ahead and applied for a judicial recount.

When is the Next New Brunswick Provincial Election?

New Brunswick general elections are held every four years, on the fourth Monday in September. The next New Brunswick provincial election is scheduled for Monday September 24, 2018.