Electoral Process

The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (the "Office" or "Elections Saskatchewan") is an independent office of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly.

Mission Statement

To ensure the right of the people of Saskatchewan to participate freely in honest, open and fair electoral events, and to encourage the involvement of political parties, candidates and electors by raising their awareness and understanding of electoral processes that are transparent, efficient and accessible.

Mandate

The Office is a non-partisan body whose primary mandate is to direct and supervise the administrative and financial conduct of provincial electoral events. The Office and its activities are directed by the Chief Electoral Officer, as appointed by resolution of the Legislative Assembly. Under The Election Act, 1996 (Saskatchewan) (the "Election Act") the Office is responsible for the administration of provincial elections, by-elections, enumerations (other than during a writ of election) and provincial election finances. The Office is additionally charged with the administration of the Province's newly adopted political contributions tax credit disclosure regime under The Political Contributions Tax Credit Act, 2001 (Saskatchewan) (the "Tax Credit Act"). The Office periodically administers and oversees both referenda and plebiscites under The Referendum and Plebiscite Act, 1991 (Saskatchewan) and time votes under The Time Act, 1978 (Saskatchewan).

The Office's mandate demands the conduct of fair and equitable procedural, operational, administrative and financial electoral practices. The Office's mission is to enable provincial political stakeholders to exercise their constitutional entitlement by ensuring impartiality and statutory compliance under the Election Act. The Office's goal is to facilitate provincial electors, registered political parties and candidates in the exercise of their democratic right, as entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Values

Elections Saskatchewan's values are:

• To be independent and non-partisan ensuring public confidence in the independence of the Office and its activities by treating all stakeholders equally and without preference

• To have integrity making certain that every decision and every action enhances the democratic rights of all electors by interpreting and applying policy and legislation fairly and consistently

• To be open and transparent in all activities through consistency of action, regular and public reporting, broad communications and information sharing between and during electoral events

• To be accountable to electors and the members of the Legislative Assembly through statutory reporting of activity and performance against published standards and open discussion of the legislative and regulatory framework for electoral events and election finances

• To be efficient in designing processes and ensuring financial accountability through the development, management and deployment of up-to-date and cost-effective technology, processes, access channels and tools that encourage maximum participation and facilitate maximum compliance with financial reporting obligations

• To be effective in electoral event delivery procedures and operations reducing barriers to compliance, participation and access to the process for electors, candidates and parties, ensuring that workers are well prepared, processes are well designed and measurement systems are in place

• To be innovative, creative and flexible in delivering the present and preparing for the future looking broadly for opportunities and partnerships while considering electoral process needs and adopting optimal solutions

• To be consultative with all our stakeholders using advisory committees to evaluate legislative, regulatory and operational frameworks to ensure that they are current and relevant, regularly reviewing all stakeholder perspectives and needs, and by sharing evaluations of Elections Saskatchewan's performance

• To be professional in all our activities by bringing to Saskatchewan the best practices of electoral administrators across Canada and in democracies across the world

• To create a cooperative working environment and encourage all members of the election team to work together and to work with their stakeholders and partners to better serve the electorate of Saskatchewan

Everything that Elections Saskatchewan does will be guided by these values

Vision

Elections Saskatchewan's vision is:

A made-in-Saskatchewan electoral process that responds to the needs of all of our stakeholders

There are eight aspects to our vision:

• Broadly-based communications initiatives, publications and advertising, combined with focused outreach programs will ensure that all stakeholders are fully aware of their opportunities to be involved in the electoral process.

• Administrative and physical barriers that challenge or deter electors will be identified, removed and replaced by inclusive and accessible processes and procedures that will encourage the highest level of participation in Saskatchewan electoral events.

• Electors will have the opportunity to use proven and leading-edge technologies to obtain electoral information and participate in all aspects of the electoral process, including voter registration and casting their ballot.

• Cost effective electoral processes will take advantage of state-of-the-art information and technical systems that capitalize on public investment in government databases and related activities and also benefit from public and private sector partnerships within Saskatchewan and across Canada.

• Increased compliance with the election finances provisions of the legislation will be achieved through the direct involvement of political parties, candidates, official agents and business managers in the development of a full range of simplified assistance tools to be provided by Elections Saskatchewan, resulting in reduced investigation and enforcement activity.

• The wishes and needs of all stakeholders in the electoral process will be canvassed and considered through formalized and timely outreach and consultative processes with provisions for meaningful review and feedback.

• Through timely reviews of electoral processes and legislation by Saskatchewan's legislators and the Chief Electoral Officer, necessary innovation and flexibility in the statutory and operational framework will be achieved while preserving the integrity of the system.

• A pool of well-trained election officers will be available to ensure that Elections Saskatchewan can meet its event-readiness mandate.

Responsibilities

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.

Elections Saskatchewan Staff

Dave Wilkie
Acting Chief Electoral Officer
Email
(306) 787-4061 / 1-866-247-5404

Jeff Livingstone
Manager of Information Technology and Register of Electors
Email
(306) 787-9327 / 1-866-250-2263

Brent Nadon
Manager of Election Finances
Email
(306) 787-4017 / 1-866-249-7186

Beverlee Graf
Acting Administrative Coordinator
Email
(306) 787-7707 / 1-877-958-8683

Amy Andreasen
Financial Analyst
Email
(306) 798-3408 / 1-877-958-8683

Daniel Bogdon
Communications
Email
(306) 787-7355 / 1-877-958-8683

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