Revised Electoral Boundaries report released
Posted Jul 20, 2012 04:11:19 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
After the first report was rejected by the province of Nova Scotia, the Electoral Boundaries Commission has re-drawn the lines again.
There are several changes to the original report that was rejected by the province.
To begin with, two new constituencies have been added to the Halifax area: Fairview-Clayton Park and Sackville-Beaver Bank.
Electoral Boundaries Commission chair Teresa MacNeil explains it all comes down to numbers.
“In HRM we had quite a few constituencies where they had more voters that took them well above the par point,” she says.
As directed, the number of voters in each electoral district in the province now falls within 25 per cent of the average number of voters.
She says the other big change was for the four protected constituencies of Clare, Argyle, Richmond and Preston.
“They had to come up to the same number within 25 per cent of 100 per cent of the average number of voters,” says MacNeil.
The commission also got rid of three other constituencies, with MacNeil explaining, “One is in the Guysborough area and one in Yarmouth. Two have been given to the HRM area and the other one is of course gone.”
That means they have recommended there will be one less seat in the provincial legislature, making the number 51.
Some of the other changes were common sense, and were made to clean things up.
“Let’s say we drew a line through your backyard or perhaps through the middle of the street so that you were voting in one constituency and the person across the street was voting in another,” she explains.
There will be a second round of public meetings beginning August 7 in Port Hawkesbury, but MacNeil doesn’t expect anything to change between now and when the final report is presented August 31.
