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Elections Saskatchewan held media briefings during voting to ensure outlets had information on the security and integrity of the provincial election, correct details on obtaining accurate information, and a chance to ask Chief Electoral Officer Dr. Michael Boda any questions.
Today, Monday the 28th, is the last day of voting. Polling stations will be open from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. The First Preliminary Count starts immediately at 8.
Boda said the organization wants to assure voters that casting their ballots is safe and secure, noting that influences from the US have some people doubting whether elections can ever be safe.
That’s why this election has three separate counts.
“It’s so that we can assure the integrity of the election,” Boda said. “No one is allowed to vote twice in this province. We know that, and we’ve never had a problem with this, but it is part of the integrity. We will first count all the in-person ballots, and then for the second count (on Oct. 30), when we count the vote-by-mail ballots, we’re able to determine whether an individual has voted a second time, and we won’t count that.”
The final count — on Nov. 9 — will review the previous counts, any additional vote-by-mail ballots received after Oct. 26, and all the votes cast from hospitals, remand facilities, and temporarily displaced voters.
The 2024 Provincial Election has more than 810,000 registered voters, 243 candidates in 61 constituencies, and 56 total hours of voting at 882 voting locations, and Elections Sask extended voting hours this year. There are also 369 licensed care homes registered as voting locations. More than 32,000 voters registered to vote by mail, and another change Elections Saskatchewan has made is to eliminate an Election Day — there was a six-day Voting Week, and a so-called ‘Last Day of Voting’, but Boda stressed that they encouraged voters to get their ballots in early.
As of Oct. 26, more than 273,000 votes had been cast, compared to 184,000 in 2020. All ballots are hand-cast, and all will be hand-counted.
“All of our ballots are being counted by hand. Electronic poll books are laptops with specialized software that allow us to replace the pencils and rulers which you’ve seen before, that were used to strike voters off what was a very thick list. They electronically and far more accurately manage the voters list for us.
“They allow us to handle a much greater volume of voters, and since there’s a higher population density in these urban constituencies, we can concentrate more voters in each poll.”
Boda said he’d heard about intermittent problems with electronic poll books in Moose Jaw. The poll books contain the list of registered voters for the constituency, and there are reports that some voters were shown as having already voted. However, he said he is confident those issues are isolated, and he said no one had been wrongly turned away.
“We are aware of that. There was something in Moose Jaw that unfolded, and we are looking into it. I don’t have any concerns about it. Those individuals were allowed to vote. There are times with the system that we have to look into it further and determine what exactly happened.
“My understanding is it was a very small number of voters where that happened.”
More information is available at elections.sk.ca/electoralevents/october-2024-provincial-election.
“I ask you to please stress in your own reporting that results are not final until the final count,” Boda told media. “No one wins or loses on the night of the First Preliminary Count. Things can change, especially given the volume of the vote-by-mail ballots.”
Boda added that while Elections Saskatchewan can’t predict voter turnout until the final count, they have since a much higher turnout so far than in any previous election.