Only 44 percent of young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 voted in the last provincial election according to Elections NB.
As a result, CEO Kim Poffenroth says returning officers across the province will be hiring 16 and 17-year-old high school students.
“We want to engage those young people before they are even eligible to vote. So that is certainly one of the purposes behind getting these students involved at the polls,” she notes.
Poffenroth says teenagers are also tech-savy and in many cases are the most bilingual which means thay can serve electors in both official languages.
She adds Elections NB is coordinating with the school districts to hire as many as 500 students for September’s election.
Poffenroth says the campus voting program is also being expanded to give college and university students easier access to vote.
