Councillors vote to relax rules around mail in ballots

Plans may soon be in the works to amend how mail-in voting will take place in Saskatoon for the civic election this fall.

It’s anticipated that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, more voters will want to mail in their ballots, rather than going to polling stations.

During last Monday’s governance and priorities committee meeting, councillors voted to recommend that two bylaws be changed to let people register online.

But councillor Darren Hill says that could present some challenges because Saskatoon doesn’t have a voters list.

“With that brings the opportunity for voter fraud if anybody so chooses to have done that…there’s no way to confirm that a person has voted once or voted twice, unless someone calls for an investigation or says ‘I believe this person has voted more than once.’ Then we would go back through all of our data and see if we can find their name entered twice. It’s very labour intensive, and it’s only if there’s a complaint lodged. We don’t even do audits of the ballots.”

According to a report from city administration, during the 2016 election, there were 196 ballots mailed in. However, the process at that time required the voter to make an application in person before the returning officer or other election official to verify their identity.

If the changes are approved ultimately by city council, voters would fill out a form online, and provide copies of their ID along with a signed witness statement. They would then print it out, and mail it to City Hall.

All applications would have to be received by city hall before polling stations close on election day.

Hill says his concerns about potential voter fraud aren’t without merit.

“It’s simply been the honour system. People sign the declaration that they’re only voting once and that’s great… but if someone’s intentionally going to vote twice, I don’t think the consequences are going to be a deterrent for them.”

The idea of creating a voters list was brought up about a decade ago, said Hill. However the cost – at around $500,000 – was prohibitive at the time. Now, he’s prepared to introduce a motion asking that the city work with the provincial government to establish a voters list prior to the next election, and says the city has “tremendous reserves” that he has no problem pulling from.

“The very next opportunity I have do it, I’ll signal early in advance to the administration and to my colleagues to let them know that it’s coming. I don’t want them to have to scramble in a week.”

Saskatoon’s civic election takes place Nov. 9.