Results for Saskatoon city council were delayed for the third straight election; city hall must address its inept election procedures.
Saskatoon made history on Nov. 13 with the election of its first woman mayor.
If you wanted to see a ridiculous manifestation of the delays, the scene at city hall provided it, with journalists and others trying to add up the results from long, printed lists that were posted on bulletin boards in the lobby. It resembled what you might see in a banana republic — decades ago.
But the delays amount to far more than frustration for overworked journalists at understaffed media outlets. The perennial lags in Saskatoon rob voters of their opportunity to watch democracy in action and experience the drama of an unfolding election.
Instead, the valiant efforts of broadcast crews to provide live coverage were severely undermined by hours of delays. In an era of declining voter turnout and conspiracy theories targeting election systems, Saskatoon needs to make a serious effort to fix its inept election procedures.
But the question that resonates is why Saskatchewan’s largest city fails to deliver timely election results.
Unlike the provincial election, which stuck with manual counting of ballots for reasons never clearly explained, votes in Saskatoon’s civic election were counted electronically as soon as ballots were cast.
For the past three elections, we’ve been told Saskatoon results were delayed by people in line at 8 p.m. when polls closed. Provincial legislation requires that those in line when polls close be allowed to vote.
But why this continues to obstruct the release of election results in Saskatoon to a greater degree than elsewhere in Saskatchewan remains a mystery.
However, results were substantially released at 9:30 p.m. in 2020, earlier than this year.
According to an emailed response from Elections Saskatoon — with no human name attached, even though deputy city clerk Shellie Bryant served as returning officer — it took two hours after polls closed to begin posting results and four hours for full results.
“We are very happy with the overall operation of the election, with no significant issues reported at polling stations, and an increase in voter turnout over the 2020 election,” the reply says.
“The new modernization processes utilized were successful and will be further analyzed as the complete election operation is reviewed.”
Nothing instills confidence like a statement to which everyone is unwilling to attach their names.
The reply provides no insight into why this continues to pose a problem in Saskatoon and not elsewhere. Nor was a question about how many people were in line at 8 p.m. answered.
It took more than two days to get a response, so maybe sluggishness is infused in the DNA.
The disembodied response revealed that the last vote was cast around 9 p.m. at Chief Whitecap School, but offered no clarity on why results were not posted until an hour later, other than a “longer than expected upload time” from vote tabulators.
An unattributed statement references “not wanting to release results while voting was still occurring,” which is a nice idea, but not mandated.
The message also notes that a “significant volume of mail-in ballots was received,” but no explanation is offered on how or why this contributed to delays in releasing other results.
No election in a modern Western democratic nation should produce so many crucial unanswered questions.
Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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