Elections Sask explains vote counting process and election integrity measures – DiscoverMooseJaw.com

Elections In Saskatchewan, media briefings were held during the election to ensure the media had information about the security and integrity of the provincial election, precise details of receiving accurate information, and the opportunity to ask Chief Electoral Officer Dr. Michael Bode any questions.

Today, Monday the 28th, is the last day of voting. Polling stations will be open from 9:00 to 20:00. The first preliminary vote count will begin immediately at 8:00.

Boda said the organization wants to reassure voters that voting is safe and secure, noting that U.S. influence has led some people to doubt the election will ever be secure.

That’s why there are three separate counts being kept for this election.

“This is so that we can guarantee the integrity of the elections,” Boda said. “No one is allowed to vote twice in this province. We know that and we’ve never had a problem with that, but it’s part of the integrity. We will count all in-person ballots first, and then at the second count (Oct. 30), when we count mail-in ballots, we will be able to determine whether a person voted a second time. and we won’t take that into account.”

The final vote count, which will take place Nov. 9, will consider previous counts, any additional mail-in ballots received after Oct. 26, and all votes cast from hospitals, detention centers and temporarily displaced voters.

There are more than 810,000 registered voters for the 2024 provincial election, 243 candidates in 61 constituencies, and a total of 56 hours of voting hours at 882 polling stations, with Elections Sask extending voting hours this year. There are also 369 licensed nursing homes registered as polling places. More than 32,000 voters have registered to vote by mail, and another change Elections Saskatchewan has made is eliminating Election Day: There was a six-day voting week and a so-called “last day to vote,” but Boda stressed they encouraged voters to vote early .

As of October 26, more than 273,000 votes had been cast, up from 184,000 in 2020. All ballots are submitted by hand and will all be counted by hand.

“All of our ballots are counted by hand. Electronic poll books are laptops with special software that allows us to replace the pencils and rulers you’ve seen before that were used to cross off voters from a very thick list. They electronically and much more accurately manage the voter list for us.

“They allow us to handle a much larger volume of voters, and because these urban counties have higher population densities, we can concentrate more voters at each polling place.”

In response to a question from Discover Moose JawBoda said he has heard of intermittent problems with electronic poll books in Moose Jaw. Poll books list registered voters by county, and there are reports that some voters have already cast ballots. However, he said he was confident the issues were isolated and said no one had been wrongly turned away.

“We know about this. Something happened in Moose Jaw and we’re looking into it. I don’t have any concerns about this. These persons were allowed to vote. There are times when we have to study the system in more detail and determine what exactly happened.

“My understanding is that there were a very small number of voters where this happened.”

More information can be found at choice.sk.ca/electoralevents/october-2024-provincial-election.

Discover Moose Jaw will be closely monitoring the provincial election results later today and this evening. If final results are available after the first preliminary count, we will publish them as soon as they are known.

“I ask you to emphasize in your reporting that the results are not final until the final count of votes,” Boda told the media. “No one wins or loses on the night of the first preliminary vote count. This could change, especially given the volume of mail-in ballots.”

Boda added that while the Saskatchewan Elections Authority cannot predict voter turnout until the final vote count, turnout since then has been much higher than in any previous election.