With such a big uptick in mail-in balloting, Saskatchewan’s chief electoral officer said some of the results could be delayed on the night of the election.
In other words, voters might not see all the results of the provincial election reported Monday night.
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“We’ve had a significant number in the increase of mail-in ballots that have come in this year,” said Michael Boda, Saskatchewan’s Chief Electoral Officer.
“In 2016, only about one per cent of the voters took advantage of the vote by mail opportunity and that was about 4,000,” Boda said.
For this election, Boda said, over 60,000 applications for the vote have been received by mail. Right now, only about one third or 20,000 ballots have been returned.
“We’re not sure how many will be returned of those 60,000 applications that have been approved, but on close races on election night, they may have an impact,” Boda said.
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People who have mail-in ballots have until 8:00 p.m. Monday night to get them in. But those ballots won’t be counted until the second preliminary count on Wednesday morning.
“It may very well be that there are ridings that can’t be called on election night for that very reason,” Boda said.
In 2016, eight ridings were won by less than 500 votes. These included Saskatoon Fairview, taken by the Saskatchewan Party with a margin of 182, and Regina Coronation Park, which was also taken by the Saskatchewan Party by just 147 votes.