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

Elections Saskatchewan held media briefings during the vote to ensure the media had information about the security and integrity of the provincial election, the correct details to obtain accurate information, and an opportunity to ask any questions of Chief Electoral Officer Dr. Michael Body.

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

Boda said the organization wants to reassure voters that voting is safe and secure, noting that U.S. influence has some people questioning whether elections can be secure at all.

Therefore, there are three separate counts in this election.

“This is so that we can ensure 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 it, but it’s part of the integrity. We’ll count all the in-person ballots first, and then at the second count (October 30) when we count the postal ballots, we’ll be able to tell if a person voted a second time and we won’t count that.”

The final count — Nov. 9 — will take into account preliminary counts, any additional mail-in ballots received after Oct. 26, and all votes cast in hospitals, detention centers and temporarily displaced voters.

With more than 810,000 registered voters, 243 candidates in 61 constituencies and a total voting time of 56 hours at 882 polling stations in the 2024 provincial election, Elections Sask has extended voting hours this year. There are also 369 licensed boarding houses registered as polling places. More than 32,000 voters have registered to vote by mail, and another change made by Elections Saskatchewan is the elimination of election day — there was a six-day voting week and a so-called “last voting day” — but Boda stressed they encouraged voters to get their ballots in early.

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

“All our ballots are counted by hand. Electronic voting logs are laptops with special software that allows us to replace the pencils and rulers you’ve seen before used to cross off voters from a very thick roll. They electronically and much more accurately maintain voter lists for us.

“They allow us to process a much larger number of voters, and because these urban constituencies have a higher population density, we can focus more voters on each poll.”

In response to a question from Discover Moose JawBoda said he has heard of occasional problems with the electronic survey books in Moose Jaw. Voting logs contain lists of registered voters for the constituency, and there are reports that some voters were shown as having already voted. However, he said he was confident these issues were isolated, and he said no one had been wrongly turned away.

“We know about it. Something turned up in Moose Jaw and we’re looking into it. I don’t care about that. These persons were allowed to vote. There are times when we have to take a closer look at a system and determine what exactly happened.

“My understanding is that there was a very small turnout where it happened.”

Additional information is available at selections.sk.ca/electoralevents/october-2024-provincial-election.

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

“I ask you to emphasize in your reports that the results are not final until the final tally,” Boda told the media. “No one wins or loses on the night of the first preliminary count. Everything can change, especially given the number of postal ballots.”

Boda added that while Elections Saskatchewan cannot predict voter turnout until the final count, they have had a much higher turnout since then than in any previous election.