Elections New Brunswick is exploring the accessibility of buildings commonly used as polling stations and returning offices.
This is in advance of local government elections to be held in November.
A team of returning officers will tour the province this month.
“We are pleased to move to a more structured and formal process to evaluate the accessibility requirements of these buildings, rather than the previous method of having local returning officers do the evaluations using a manual checklist we provided,” said Chief Electoral Officer Kim Poffenroth.
Elections New Brunswick adapted a tablet and app developed by Elections Nova Scotia and substituted New Brunswick’s geographical data.
The app ranks each building on various accessibility requirements, including the number of designated parking spaces, the slope of wheelchair ramps, and the width of door entrances.
Data will be shared with the 17 municipal returning officers when they attend training in August.
