Assisted Telephone Voting, Advance Voting Strike Off Information, RPP FTP Site
Assisted Telephone Voting – Candidate Representatives
In previous communiques (December 12, 2021 and January 14, 2022), I advised that my office would be piloting Assisted Telephone Voting (ATV) during the Athabasca by-election and that Candidate Representatives would be welcome to observe these processes. I hope that you will look back at those communiques to understand the goals of the pilot. I want to provide you with more details today regarding how you can observe this pilot.
ATV will be conducted in four stages:
For the ATV pilot conducted during the Athabasca by-election, candidate representatives will be permitted to observe any of the processes with the exception of the ballot marking process (step 2 above).
We recognize that candidate representatives play a vital role in the democratic process. You and your teams contribute to the transparency of the voting and vote counting processes by observing the activities of election officials and voters on behalf of the candidates they represent. However, section 79 of The Election Act, 1996 states “Subject to sections 77 and 78, while a voter is in a voting station, no other person shall enter the voting station or be in a position from which that other person can see for whom the voter marks his or her ballot paper.”
If you are interested in observing the initial intake process that will take place at Elections Saskatchewan’s head office in Regina on February 15, 2022 from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm, I ask that you notify Sarah Wright at [email protected] by 5:00 pm on February 10, 2022 with the name of the person who will be in attendance. Sarah will prepare the necessary paperwork that will allow you to enter the ATV polling place. Once you have been admitted to the polling place, you can come and go as you like, but if you are not present in the polling place when polls close at 8:00 pm, you will not be readmitted.
Details about how you can observe the post ballot marking de-encryption and counting process will be provided to you at a later date. If you have any questions, please reach out to Aaron Thompson at [email protected].
Advance Voting Strike Off Information
During the Athabasca by-election, we are pleased to once again be able to provide data on who has voted during advance voting in a timely fashion. An extract file detailing all registered voters who voted at an advance poll will be uploaded to the RPP FTP site by 1 pm the following day. For clarity, the names of voters who voted at an advance poll on February 9th will be available to you on February 10th by 1:00 pm. Please note, any voters who are not registered as voters in Athabasca as of Friday, February 4th will not be included in this data. Candidates’ representatives may request to take a photo of the poll book at the end of each voting day or during voting hours provided the poll is not busy. If you have and questions about this process or how to access the data, please contact Son Lu, IT Analyst, at [email protected].
RPP FTP Site
A reminder that voters lists, VBM extracts, and advance voting strike off information will be available to you on the RPP FTP site. A revised voters list will be made available by this Saturday afternoon. If you do not have a user account or if you cannot remember your login/password, contact Son Lu, IT Analyst, at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Dr. Michael Boda
Chief Electoral Office
Province of Saskatchewan
All information related to the Athabasca by-election can be found online at www.elections.sk.ca/athabasca.