About 54 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the 2024 Saskatchewan provincial election, which saw the Saskatchewan Party return to power for a fifth consecutive term.
It’s only a slight increase from the 2020 election of just under 53 per cent.
Michael Boda, chief electoral officer of Saskatchewan, says voter turnout can play a significant role in election results.
“When you have such small differences between the first and the second-place candidate, every vote counts. So, you always want everyone to participate,” Boda said.
Professors like Daniel Westlake at the University of Saskatchewan say it’s unclear if low turnout helped the Saskatchewan party this election.
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“I wouldn’t assume that because fewer people are voting and that’s helped the Sask Party get reelected. We don’t know. And it’s very hard to know what the opinions of these people are,”
Westlake admits understanding non-voters can be challenging as they tend not to share their thoughts.
“Sometimes you have to throw up your hands and say, look, we don’t know a lot here. We have a higher level of uncertainty here and therefore we have to be careful with the claims that we’re making. And I think that’s what we have to kind of do with non-voters. There isn’t really a good way or a really easy way to get at their views,” Westlake said.
Westlake theorizes low voter turnout stems from people waiting too long before engaging in politics — something which, if improved, would increase clarity of future election results.
“We have things like Student Vote that tries to get people voting before they’re eligible and get people used to the practice of voting even if they’re not casting a real ballot. That’s all good work. We need more of that kind of stuff,” Westlake said.
The third and final vote count is set for Nov. 9.
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