Writ dropped in Nattilik byelection

Would-be candidates have until 2 p.m. Mountain Time March 26 to declare they’re running in the byelection in Nattilik.

Elections Nunavut announced March 22 that voters in Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak will go to the polls April 26 to select a replacement for Enuk Pauloosie, who resigned the seat in February.

Qualified voters can get declarations of candidacy from returning officer Teddy Carter in Gjoa Haven, from the assistant returning officer Bob Lyall in Taloyoak and from www.elections.nu.ca.

Candidates must be 18, live in Nattilik on election day and must have lived in Nunavut for at least one year. Candidates who ran in a territorial election within the last five years, and who didn’t file a campaign financing report on time, are not eligible to run.

On June 4, 2009, MLAs voted to suspend Pauloosie from the spring session of the Nunavut assembly, without pay, for being “persistently absent without reasonable explanation from meetings of the Legislative Assembly’s committees and caucuses.” Pauloosie then returned to Iqaluit for the fall session of the assembly.