Election Postscript #RHAB6

It has been one week since election day here in New Brunswick. I am happy with the results. The campaign team I was part of was able to claim success. Victory! Greg Ericson is Councillor-Elect for Ward 8 in Fredericton.

Mayor Woodside is still mayor. Matt Hayes gave a good campaign and brought lots of ideas to the table, but in the end, Fredericton proved happy to re-elect the Brad to a record eighth term as mayor of this great city.

My campaign ended somewhat as expected. I placed second to last place, taking 704 votes. I had no expectation or any indication of how good/bad I might do in this race. So gaining that number of votes as an unknown candidate makes me happy.

The top three vote getters were Jo-Ann Fellows, Kent Fox and Jim Wolstenholme. Jo-Ann is a writer with a health care column in the provincial newspaper. Ken is a local businessman and known political personality. Jim is a health consultant with decades of health care management experience. They were known to the community prior to this election.

Jo-Ann will be a wonderful Board Member on the Horizon Health Network’s Board of Directors. I certainly wish her the best of luck and good wishes as she takes her seat on the board.

I chose to campaign using the resources I had readily available. This became an online strategy, due to the ease of using Facebook and Twitter. As well, I already had my blog established, so it became the perfect venue for talking about me and my reasons for running.

The blog is relatively new so my stats may not sound impressive. My busiest day since consolidating my blog under dougmullin.ca was election day. There were 98 page views, with the largest number of views being my post giving names and links to the candidates in my race.

I had 60 referrals from Google Search, 17 from Facebook, 4 from The Purple Violet Press, and 2 from Twitter. The most common search engine term that brought people to my site was “warren maddox regional health authority candidate” Unfortunately, Warren was the last place finisher in the race. Sorry, Warren.

When the time comes to run in any election, I want to pull a team of supporters around me. With my team, I want to develop a campaign strategy for fundraising, door-knocking, and all the trappings of a traditional campaign. I want to set myself up for success.

If you’re in NEW BRUNSWICK, did you vote on E-Day? If you’re not in NEW BRUNSWICK, do you normally vote when the opportunity presents itself?