Elections New Brunswick has launched a video campaign promoting election integrity ahead of the upcoming provincial election.
Five videos will be featured across various digital media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, as well as on Connected TV. Additionally, these videos will be screened in movie theatres.
Kim Poffenroth, the chief electoral officer, stated that the videos address various subjects such as how results are reported, the qualifications needed to vote, the process of getting on the voter’s list, and the testing procedures for tabulation machines.
“I like the idea of New Brunswickers understanding what’s involved in elections, because, for the most part, all people really know about voting in election is they go on election day or in advance, they mark their ballot, they put it in the machine and that’s it,” said Poffenroth.
“Having a little better understanding of what’s going on behind the sense of taking their single vote to make it part of the bigger democratic process.”
She would also state the campaign will ‘prebunk’ any misinformation for better voting confidence.
Before initiating the information campaign, Elections New Brunswick aimed to assess how the videos would influence public perceptions of electoral integrity and trust in the electoral process.
To achieve this, they collaborated with Daniel Stockemer and Nick Bordeleau from the University of Ottawa, who surveyed and analyzed the videos’ effects and the respondents’ views on elections and democracy.
Over 1,000 residents of New Brunswick took part in the study, with one group viewing a selection of campaign videos while the other group did not see any of the videos.
“Our study concluded first, and most importantly for Elections New Brunswick, that the video campaign is effective and could be used to improve voters’ attitudes towards elections,” said Stockemer.
“We found, for those who saw the videos, the campaign was effective in improving citizens’ attitudes towards elections, including knowledge of the electoral process, trust in elections and perceptions of electoral integrity,” added Bordeleau.
According to Bordeleau, the survey highlighted a significant trust in Elections New Brunswick. Respondents who watched the videos showed a satisfaction rate of almost 70 per cent, surpassing the satisfaction of those who didn’t view the videos by 5.4 percentage points.
