The Chief Electoral Officer's primary responsibility is to maintain a state of provincial election readiness. To that end, the Office must appoint and train requisite numbers of constituency returning officers and election officials to ensure electoral preparedness throughout the government's mandate. Assistance must also be provided to registered political parties, candidates, chief official agents and business managers to facilitate their compliance with the Election Act and to ensure effective execution of electoral events - in relation to electoral participation and financial conduct and reporting. To those ends, the Office is responsible for the preparation and dissemination of electoral information materials and for the conduct of educational workshops throughout the Province.

The Election Act places a duty on the Office to assist registered political parties, candidates, chief official agents and business managers so as to ensure the Election Act's heightened financial transparency and disclosure goals are met. In this regard, the Office publishes guidance documentation to provide practical assistance to chief official agents and business managers towards the fulfillment of their administrative and financial reporting responsibilities, the compilation of requisite support documentation and to ensure annual financial disclosure is undertaken in accordance with both the Election Act and Tax Credit Act.

The Office is responsible for the assessment and reimbursement, where applicable, of election expenses paid from the Province's Consolidated Revenue Fund. The Office has established a system of financial review to certify public reimbursement of election expenses through the examination and audit of registered political parties' and candidate's expense returns and requisite disclosure documentation. To promote transparency, expense return details are tabled in the Legislative Assembly.

The Office is responsible for prosecuting offences under the Election Act. While the Election Act is regulatory, rather than criminal, the role of the Office is to inspect, investigate and inquire instances where contravention of the Election Act is suspected or alleged, as deemed necessary by the Chief Electoral Officer. As this responsibility is a matter of considerable discretion, and is often initiated by complaints filed by interested parties, it is incumbent upon the Office to consider whether any specific situation has abrogated the overall purpose, policy rationale and/or legislative intent of the Province's electoral legislation.

The Office maintains a public relations program to ensure political stakeholders and the public are aware of important aspects of the Office's mandate by responding to public enquiries and liaising with registered political parties, candidates and their chief official agents and business managers.

The Chief Electoral Officer reports annually to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly on matters related to the Election Act. In addition to such annual reporting, the Chief Electoral Officer also prepares and tables reports in the Legislative Assembly on all electoral specific activities. Provincial election results are published in the Statement of Votes (Volume I) and its complementary volume the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer Campaign Contributions and Expenditures (Volume II). Administrative and financial reporting of constituency by-elections is encapsulated in individual Statement of By-Election reports.

The environment within which the Office is accountable is unique and complex due to the inherent uncertainty of the provincial electoral cycle, the decentralized nature of electoral administration and the interaction amongst registered political parties, candidates and the electorate. The integration of this decentralized process among the Province's political stakeholders rests with the Office and its centralized administration and impartial application of the Election Act.

Constituency Returning Officers

Central electoral administration is the responsibility of the Office, with regional operational conduct of electoral events falling to the responsibility of constituency returning officers. As a representative of the Office, constituency returning officers are entrusted with the responsibility of advancing the neutrality of the Province's decentralized electoral process within the constituency and are responsible for administration, conduct and reporting of electoral proceedings (general or by-elections, referendums and plebiscites).

An important part of maintaining election readiness is having constituency returning officers for the Province's fifty-eight constituencies. The Chief Electoral Officer appoints the Province's constituency returning officers. Notices of all such appointments/cancellations are published in The Saskatchewan Gazette. Returning officer vacancies, which occur after March 22, 2006 (date of proclamation of Bill 119 - The Election Amendment Act, 2005) will be filled by an independent merit-based competition.