Whopping turnout marks second Nunavut election

Despite high winds, bone-chilling cold, and the ever-present threat of looming blizzards, more than 10,000 voters flocked to the polls for Nunavut’s second territorial election on Feb. 16.

When the night was over – and it was a long night – 17 men and two women were elected or acclaimed to Nunavut’s second legislative assembly.

The new MLAs will likely meet in Iqaluit March 4-5 to pick a speaker, premier and new cabinet from among themselves at a leadership session in the legislative assembly chamber. The first session of the second legislative assembly would likely start the week after.

And at least two members say they want to be sitting in the premier’s chair when that session begins: the veteran Nunavut leader Tagak Curley, 60, who was acclaimed in Rankin Inlet North, and the current premier, Paul Okalik, who easily won Iqaluit West by defeating NEU boss Doug Workman by 415 votes to 124.

Potential premier and cabinet candidates are already working the phones to win support from among Nunavut’s 19-member caucus.

“The jockeying has already begun,” said Keith Peterson, Cambridge Bay’s MLA-elect. Peterson, who took about 60 per cent of the vote in Cambridge Bay to defeat three other candidates, is likely to be a front runner for a cabinet job.

By the time Sandy Kusugak, Nunavut’s chief electoral officer, had finished a 23-hour-long work-day at 5 a.m. on Feb. 17, she knew her fledgling organization, Elections Nunavut, had passed its first major test with flying colours.

“I can’t think of a person working in this election who didn’t do their best …. I think everyone who worked for me was extremely honest and above board and full of integrity,” Kusugak said.

Elections Nunavut figures show that 10,120 voters cast ballots in the 18 constituencies where elections were held. Their figures also show that 10,316 people were listed on Nunavut’s new voter registry.

Using the normal method for calculating the number, that produces a huge voter turnout figure – a whopping 98.1 per cent.

But Kusugak cautions that the real turnout figure is probably somewhat lower.

That’s because, in some constituencies, many voters didn’t register until they showed up to vote on election day.

“We certainly knew there were a lot of people out there who were not registered,” Kusugak said.

“We knew, partly because it was a new Elections Act and new returning officers, that in a lot of cases we had a very incomplete list.”

That meant that in places like Iqaluit and Clyde River, where voter registration was low, large numbers of people were either registered at the polling station, or chose to swear statutory declarations that allowed them to legally vote.

And over the next week or so, Elections Nunavut staff will try to count up all the newly registered voters, then add those to the 10,316 listed before election day. That, Kusugak said, will allow them to produce an accurate turnout figure.

Her most urgent task right now, though, is to ensure that a recount, supervised by a judge, is performed in Tunnuniq, or Pond Inlet, where incumbent MLA Jobie Nutarak is separated from his nearest rival, second-place finisher David Qajaakuttuk Qamaniq, by only four votes.

Nunavut’s Elections Act states that a judicial recount must be held when a difference of less than two per cent of votes cast separate the front-runner and any other candidate.

As of press-time this week, Kusugak said she was still waiting to hear which Nunavut judge would be assigned the task of going to Pond Inlet to conduct the recount.

If Nutaraq manages to hold on to his seat after the recount, he’ll find that many of his former seat-mates are gone, either through retirement or through defeat at the polls.

Five incumbent MLAs lost their seats on Monday night: Enoki Irqittuq, who lost to Louis Tapardjuk in Ammituq; Speaker Kevin O’Brien, who lost to David Alagalak in Arviat; Donald Havioyak, who lost to Joe Allen Evyagotailak in Kugluktuk; Rebekah Uqi Williams, who lost to Levi Barnabas in Quttiktuq; and legislative gadfly David Iqaqrialu, who lost to James Arreak in Uqqummiut.

On the other hand, the victors included five of Nunavut’s seven sitting cabinet ministers, all of whom were easily re-elected: Peter Kattuk, Ed Picco, Paul Okalik, Peter Kilabuk, and Olayuk Akesuk.

Two other cabinet ministers, Kelvin Ng and Manitok Thompson, didn’t run. Ng is retiring from politics, while Thompson is considering a run for the Liberal nomination in the next federal election.

Two of the 10 women who ran gained seats: Leona Aglukkaq, a former deputy minister and assistant clerk in the legislative assembly who won Nattilik with 305 votes, and Levinia Brown, a former mayor of Rankin Inlet who took Rankin Inlet South-Whale Cove with 206 votes.

The number of non-Inuit in the house has shrunk from four to two: Keith Peterson and Ed Picco.

Kusugak said the election was a learning experience for her staff, experience they’ll put to good use in the next one.

“We’re a new office. So I would never say that all our materials, which in other jurisdictions are developed over 20 years, are the way we would like them to be for the next election. But there’s only so much you can do in the amount of time we had,” Kusugak said.

For the next election, Kusugak said she would like to develop better training materials for returning officers.

“Some of them have done it for the first time, so they’ll look at the next training period differently,” she said.