Elections Sask. preparing for up to 40 per cent of election votes to come by mail

Saskatchewan's chief electoral officer says the province has capacity to receive about 40 per cent of votes for the provincial election by mail, but urges people who want to do so to sign up now.

Michael Boda said Elections Saskatchewan has already received 19,000 applications from people who want to vote by mail for the Oct. 26 election.

Any eligible votercan apply to vote by mail as long as their application is received by Oct. 15.

Bodasaid that if the current rate of applications continues, the electoral service could expect the total number of mail-in votes to reach between 40,000 and 50,000 about ten per cent of the expected turnout rate in Saskatchewan.

In 2016, just one per cent of votes or 4,000 were received by mail.

Capacity for 180,000 mail-in votes: Elections Saskatchewan

Boda said the province has capacity to handle up to 40 per cent or 180,000 votes by mail, adding that there is room to increase that capacity if required.

"We feel confident that we're going to be able to manage this process," said Boda.

He urged people who want to vote by mail to sign up now rather than waiting for the Oct. 15 deadline.

Boda said he still expects many people to want to vote in person.

Boda said Elections Saskatchewan did survey research in Saskatchewan earlier in the pandemic to gauge the level of interest in voting by mail.

It also looked at surveys fromB.C. and other parts of Canada.

"What we were seeing consistently over a number of ways is between 20 and 30 per cent have consistently expressed an interest in a vote by mail ballot," said Boda.

"That doesn't mean that they end up actually doing it. It means they've expressed interest in it."

Sask. in contact with B.C. about election

He said Saskatchewan does not have the capacity to handle 100 per cent of provincial election voting by mail.

Boda said he personally has been in contact with the electoral officers for B.C., which has a provincial election scheduled for Oct. 24, and Canada.

B.C. has received more than 400,000 requests to vote by mail so far, and expects up to35 per cent of the total votes to be submitted by mail.

Elections Saskatchewan has also been in communication with Canada Post to discuss the extra volume of mail that could be created by mail-in voting.