The head of Saskatchewan’s election management body is proposing telephone voting for the next provincial election for voters who are unable to make it to the polls before they close.
Elections Saskatchewan’s chief electoral officer Michael Boda says this method of voting would only service a small segment of the voter population referred to as “gap voters” who find themselves in a circumstance where they missed the mail-in voting deadline and have no way of otherwise casting a ballot.
This recommendation is part of Boda’s post-election report released last week, which also recommends initiatives piloted in the province’s 2024 election — such as mail-in voting and turning election day into election week — be fully implemented in the next election.
Telephone voting will likely be a two-step process, says Boda, which would include callers providing their identification to one elections officer and then being transferred to a second person where they will cast their ballot.
British Columbia already has a telephone voting component to their elections, though their guidelines are more open, with those in hospitals, care facilities or with disabilities eligible to vote with assisted telephone voting.
Boda says he recognizes that Saskatchewan’s application of telephone voting will look different as the province has a different goal in mind which is specifically to target those who would otherwise be left without a method to vote on the final day of voting.
“I’m being very intentional about what I’m putting forward,” he said. “This is a very different process and the goal is to serve those gap voters.”
As for the impact on the province’s voter turnout, which hit 56.8 per cent in the 2024 election, politics expert Ken Coates says he doesn’t think telephone voting will move the needle much since it is targeted for a small percentage of voters.
Still, he says changes to the electoral process are important if it engages more voters.
“If you can get it so people feel like they’re connected and engaged, they’re not disenfranchised, they are not ignored, then more power to them,” he said.
Boda says he will be putting forward a CEO directive in May to the province’s Board of Internal Economy to approve telephone voting for the province’s 2028 election.