No such thing as Election Day: winner won’t be declared for 12 days

In a virtual media briefing Friday morning, Chief Electoral Officer Dr. Michael Boda spoke about how the ballot counting timelines will work over the next 12 days.

“There is no such thing as an Election Day anymore,” said Boda.

“As we’ve always done, we will begin our first preliminary count at 8 p.m. when the polls close on the last day of voting,” he said of voting week, which ran from this past Tuesday and wraps up on Mon., Oct. 28.

He explained the first preliminary count, they will be counting all of the ballots from voting week along with homebound voting ballots and personal care facilities.

“While this count has always occurred this way after the polls on the last day of voting, there are some, there are some differences that I want to point out,” he said.

The first change involves the results page. In the past, they have used the term ballot boxes. Going forward, this will no longer be the case and instead will be called voting stations to be more transparent.

The second difference relates to the order of how the results will be reported. Using The constituency Kelvington-Wadena as an example, Boda explained there were seven early voting locations. With some more remote exceptions, they have made it so most rural drivers don’t have to travel more than a half hour to a station.

“With respect to results, anyone in the constituency can vote at those seven early voting locations, and they are open for more days,” said Boda.

Elections staff expect a higher number of ballots to be cast in the early voting locations than at the one day spots.

Nearly one million ballots are being printed at six locations in Regina, North Battleford Saskatoon, and Winnipeg.

This election will include ‘tech locations’ in the Battlefords, Prince Albert, Saskatoon, Regina, Swift Current, Yorkton and Martensville-Blairmore,

Ballots will still be counted by hand as they were in the past, but in the tech locations, a laptop will be used to scan voter cards as they are used and strike them off the current vote list.

“For this election, all of our ballots are being counted by hand,” he said. The computers, called poll books, allow for counters to replace the pencils and rulers used in the past to strike off voters.

“They electronically and far more accurately manage the voters list for us.”

The chief electoral officer explained people can expect much of the reporting early on in the night will come from the smaller, last-day, rural voting locations.

“When the rural constituencies report first and you’re not seeing results from urban constituencies until later in the evening, that is not evidence that there is trouble,” Boda said. “Given the system we have, this is what we fully expect.”

The second preliminary count will come next Wednesday and will include all the vote by mail ballots received on Sat., Oct. 26. The ballots will be counted centrally and finally on November. 9, the final count will be held at the returning office and centrally in Regina.

“Returning offices will be verifying…the numbers generated from the first preliminary count,” he said noting while they won’t be doing anymore counting, Regina will count vote by mail ballots received from October. 27 to November 7.

“Results are not final until the final count. No one wins or loses on the night of the first preliminary,” Boda said.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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by Julia Lovett-Squires

No such thing as Election Day: winner won’t be declared for 12 days

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