REGINA — Standing in front of a whirring Heidelberg SORK offset printing press dating back to 1970, Dr. Michael Boda, Saskatchewan’s chief electoral officer, met with reporters at Regina’s PrintWest printing shop, who produced ballots for 27 of the 61 (approximately 44 per cent) constituencies over the Thanksgiving long weekend.
Nominations for those running in the provincial election closed on Oct. 12 at 2 p.m., and according to Boda, there’s a healthy number of candidates.
“There were 243 candidates who were nominated across the province,” he confirmed. “We have one or two constituencies with six candidates, a number with five, a number with four and many with three. So, that’s a good thing for democracy, we have a lot of candidates and that’s exciting for this process.”
The number of candidates is an increase over the last election in 2020 when 236 candidates were nominated, but less than the record 268 candidates seen in 2016.
“It’s a little bit fewer than our record,” Boda told the World-Spectator. “It’s still exciting that that many people are putting their name forward. We know that only 61 will win, but it is important that in a democratic society, we have a competition of ideas and a competition of candidates.”
Effective 2 p.m. on Oct. 12, the team at Elections Saskatchewan immediately readied the information for the waiting printing services to tackle the massive job of producing the ballots.
“Our team took over from there and began a three-step process of making sure that the names submitted were spelled accurately, and we went through that process until yesterday evening (Oct. 12) with the printers and confirmed that everything is correct,” explained Boda.
“We’re using six printers, principally in Saskatoon and Regina, but we have one in North Battleford and we have another in Winnipeg. We’re printing 990,000 ballots, and that’s enough for every voter in the province, plus 20 per cent in case eligible voters come and register at the polls.”
PrintWest has been part of the ballot printing process for around 30 years, with 45 staff members working diligently through the busy weekend.
“We really try to close it up and we try to have it completed by Monday evening so that we can manage deliveries Tuesday,” said PrintWest president director Corie Triffo. “Some stuff doesn’t change, it’s still the same processes in the past 30 years, but then there are new things that have changed dramatically.”
All told, there were seven presses busy producing the ballots in Triffo’s shop, and while advancements in technology have streamlined some areas of the job, nothing beats old-fashioned eyes on paper.
“You still really do need eyes on paper,” confirmed Triffo. “Especially dealing with a numbered product, you don’t want to be missing a number, you want to make sure the sequences are correct, and we want to make sure the product going into the box is correct. There are several checks that we have to make sure that it’s right.”
Once printing is complete, all those ballots are then shipped to the returning officers in each constituency where election workers then distribute those boxes to each voting location throughout the individual constituency.
“This is not one general election, it is 61 small elections across each constituency,” explained Boda. “We have to make sure that we have enough ballots in each constituency, so there’s an extra 20 per cent for each constituency.”
Ensuring enough ballots are at all the voting stations across the province is no small task as Boda pointed out.
“We will be using ballots in around 1,300 locations across the province, so it’s a very big effort, but it’s a very disciplined effort that we follow, and we want to be very careful because we manage these ballots very carefully,” he said, adding that a total of 5,000 people will be working with Elections Saskatchewan this year in those locations. “Transparency is very important. It’s an important part of running an election. We’re following the law as it’s been laid out, and that’s how we move forward. We also follow best practice in terms of how we conduct an electoral event.”
Making it easier to vote
This election has a few significant changes in order to make the voting process easier. The hope is that the number of people turning out at the polls will also increase as numbers have dipped in recent decades.
Voter turnout for the 2020 election sat at 52.86 per cent, down slightly from 56.8 per cent in 2016, but also significant as the Covid election marked Saskatchewan’s lowest voter interest ever. For most of the province’s history, voting has been exuberant with an average 82 per cent of people casting a ballot through a seven-decade period between 1921 and 1991.
Holding a sheet of uncut ballots, Boda explained how some additional voting options are now available.
“We have a variety of special voting opportunities,” Boda said. “We’re in 39 nursing homes across the province, and every single nursing home that is registered, licensed with the government of Saskatchewan, we will be going in and providing those ballots there. In addition to that, we have been promoting among those where we have seniors who are living independently. There’s over 250 of those, we’ve been promoting vote-by-mail balloting as well, but anyone who has a physical disability and can’t leave their home, we have homebound voting for them.”
The ‘vote by mail’ option Boda mentioned was something utilized during the last election during the pandemic.
“In terms of vote by mail, we anticipate that there will be around eight to 10 per cent of voters who will make use of vote by mail during the process,” Boda said. “That will be down I expect a little bit from the Covid election because a lot of people wanted access to those ballots, but we are finding a very strong demand for a vote by mail processes.”
During the week leading up to Election Day—from October 22-26—people have the option to cast their vote during Election Week at any station in their home constituency—something that has become more popular according to Boda when asked.
“Absolutely, it’s gaining in popularity,” he replied. “We’re trying to create a system that’s useful for the 2024 voter, not the 1905 voter, and basically what it’s doing is saying the entire week, there’s no better day to vote the first day, the second day, the last day of voting. So you can go and vote in any voting location in your constituency during the entire week.”
On Election Day, on October 28, voters can only cast a ballot at their designated location—details that can be found on the voter information cards sent out to each eligible address.
Boda also wanted to remind eligible voters to ensure they bring identification with them wherever they choose to cast their ballot.
“Overwhelmingly people are using their driver’s license because it does have the photo and address on it,” he said. “There are many people in the province who have identification from SGI that’s not a driver’s license, they can also use that. In other cases, what you need is at least your name and address on one piece of identification and your address on the other one.”
For people who do not have government-issued identification that includes a photo, name, and address, two pieces of identification can be used.
“But your voter information card—which all eligible voters will receive in the mail—can be used as a piece of identification,” said Boda. “It’s the largest event in Saskatchewan, and it takes cycles for us to transition to so that it is more convenient for voters and that’s what we’re doing. We began this process in 2016; 2020 with COVID unfortunately slowed us down on a few things, but we introduced vote by mail, which became very popular.”
Streamlining the voting process plus incorporating updates that shift with the times are the continued goals in the evolving system.
“Whether they’re up in remote areas of the north, they’re in rural areas, or they’re in the cities, we want everyone to have access to their ballots, and we’re working very hard at that,” Boda said.
