REGINA, April 16, 2016 – The final count of all ballots cast for the 28th General Election is now complete. While the candidates leading in the vote count on election night remain unchanged, these results do not become official until the return of the writs which is scheduled to take place on April 27.
A total of 434,244 ballots were cast in the election. This represents 57.8 per cent of the 750,893 voters who were registered for the election.
“Today marks an important milestone in the election cycle, as these results will become historical records and will be looked back on for decades and elections to come,” says Dr. Michael Boda, Chief Electoral Officer of Saskatchewan.
Elections Saskatchewan provided many ways for voters to cast a ballot during the General Election. A total of 3,554 ballot boxes were used for the election and included:
The preliminary results released on April 4 showed a total of 426,706 ballots cast. These results did not include hospital and remand centre votes, nor absentee ballots from mail-in-voting.
The Saskatchewan Elections Act allows for a voter to postmark their completed absentee mail-in ballot as late as 8:00 p.m. on April 4. All absentee ballots needed to be received by April 14 to be counted. More than 5,000 absentee ballot applications were processed before the March 28 deadline, and 4,813 were returned by the April 14 deadline. Election officials also need time to centralize, sort and forward all of the hospital and remand centre ballots to their appropriate constituencies for counting.
“I am extremely proud of the attention to detail and adherence to the legislative process that our field leadership team around the province has shown the past few weeks in completing these post-election day tasks. They serve democracy well with their diligence and dedicated efforts,” says Boda. “Our team’s focus now shifts to the return of the writs on Wednesday, April 27 and the closing of returning offices on Saturday, April 30.
For more details regarding the Final Count results, visit www.elections.sk.ca.
Elections Saskatchewan is the province’s independent, impartial, professional election management body. Given a mandate from the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly, it organizes, manages and oversees provincial electoral events, including the April 4, 2016 general election. Information for voters, workers, media, candidates and parties at www.elections.sk.ca.
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For more information contact:
Tim Kydd
Senior Director, Outreach & Policy
Elections Saskatchewan
306.787.7355
[email protected]