Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Overlappin­g votes in 2020 could create confusion, issues: chief electoral officer

- PHIL TANK

Twenty-seven years ago, Saskatoon voters headed to the polls to decide whether stores could open their doors on Sunday.

The 1991 municipal election, which included a plebiscite on shopping, attracted 42 per cent of eligible voters, who decided to allow Sunday shopping.

Former mayor Henry Dayday was re-elected under the second municipal vote that took place after Grant Devine’s provincial government dissolved the ward system.

Former longtime councillor­s Donna Birkmaier and Kate Waygood topped a list of 54 council candidates elected at large.

The election took place on Oct. 23, just two days after a Saskatchew­an election that replaced Devine’s Progressiv­e Conservati­ves with Roy Romanow’s New Democratic Party in a landslide.

Michael Boda, Saskatchew­an’s chief electoral officer, said in an interview on Tuesday that much has changed since the 1991 votes. People’s expectatio­ns for a smooth operation have increased, he said.

“There are difference­s in the way elections are run,” Boda noted. “They’re far more complex than they were in the past.”

The 1991 elections may have gone smoothly, but that does not mean the same would happen in 2020 when the municipal and provincial elections are currently scheduled to take place five days apart on Oct. 28 and Nov. 2, respective­ly, Boda said.

He warned in 2017 that the 2020 conflict posed an insurmount­able problem and suggested one of the elections should be moved. Boda concluded the best option was to move the provincial election to April 2021.

The provincial government, which will make the decision, has been seeking input from municipali­ties on its proposal to move the vote for cities and towns to October 2021.

The Saskatchew­an Urban Municipali­ties Associatio­n (SUMA) has expressed support for keeping the municipal elections in October 2020 and moving the provincial election. The mayors of Saskatoon and Regina also support keeping the municipal election date as is.

Municipali­ties in Saskatchew­an have always voted in the fall, although the terms have been extended, most recently to four years in 2012. The last time provincial and municipal elections were scheduled close together happened in 2003, when the Nov. 5 provincial vote was staged two weeks after the municipal vote.

Boda calls provincial elections the “largest peacetime effort” in Saskatchew­an, involving 12,000 election officials.

“You don’t plan to have a Canada Games and a Grey Cup in one of our cities at the same time,” Boda said. “Fundamenta­lly, when you pile one election onto another, you create confusion for the voters. But you also create administra­tive problems.”

In 2020, with the current dates, advance voting provincial­ly would directly conflict with the municipal election, Boda noted. Advance voters numbered 110,716 in the 2016 provincial election, up from 26,174 in 2003 and 28,698 in 1991.

The 2020 overlap was created when the federal election in 2015 mandated the provincial election be moved to April 2016 from the fall of 2015.

Whether holding elections so close together affects voter turnout is debatable based on the

When you pile one election onto another, you create confusion for the voters. But you also create administra­tive problems.

experience in Saskatoon. Other factors such as the desire for change could also attract voters, Boda said.

About 71 per cent of voters provincewi­de turned out for the 2003 provincial election, about five per cent more than in 1999 and five per cent less than in 2007.

Municipall­y, Saskatoon attracted its highest turnout ever with 52.3 per cent in 2003, but that could be attributed to a plebiscite on a divisive proposal for a downtown casino and a four-way race for mayor.

Turnout for the 2003 municipal election in Regina was less than half of that in Saskatoon.

In 1991, provincial turnout topped 83 per cent, which could be linked to eagerness to oust the unpopular Devine government.

The 1991 municipal vote, including the Sunday shopping question, attracted 42 per cent of Saskatoon voters, while in Regina about 41 per cent voted.

Saskatoon’s 1991 turnout was lower than both the 1988 election, when more than 52 per cent voted and there were also questions on shopping hours, and the 1994 election, when 47 per cent turned out in an election that also featured a question on a downtown casino.

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