Yellowknife (Oct 27/03) - After almost 30 years of running elections in the Northwest Territories, David Hamilton can see the end of the road.

"This will probably be my last election," the chief electoral officer said as he prepared for Nov. 24 territorial election.

Nominations opened today for candidates in 19 constituencies across the territories and close Friday.

It's Hamilton's job to see that the election machinery runs smoothly, that nominations are recorded, ballots printed and that vote counts are accurate and quickly reported.

The biggest change this year is the reduced time for the official campaign, from 45 days to just 28 days from the time nominations open to voting day.

"We got complaints about the advertising and the campaigning; the voters didn't like it, the candidates didn't like it, so it was cut back," Hamilton said.

"With improved communications, candidates should have plenty of time to get their message out, but in this election, a lot of them are out of the gate early."

It doesn't matter if candidates campaign for six days or 60; by law they can't spend more than $30,000 on their campaigns.

"Sometimes, it doesn't seem to matter," said Hamilton.

He recalled one candidate who won with a campaign budget of less than $30 and many others who lost despite spending thousands to court voters.

The former Hudson Bay administrator, who retired as clerk of the territorial legislature this year, ran his first election in 1974 when residents of Aklavik voted to elevate the settlement to a hamlet.

Hamilton has been involved in just about every significant vote since then, including the 1982 plebiscite to divide Nunavut from the Northwest Territories and the 1992 vote fixing the boundary between the two territories.

After all that time he concludes "there is never a good time of year to hold an election. In summer everyone is away, or on holidays. In November, it's the weather."

He's also learned that Murphy's Law is in full force. Whatever can go wrong will, whether it's a blizzard, a power outage or a poll that opens late. "We're a bit more flexible in the North in dealing with those things; I think voters have learned to trust us here," Hamilton said.