Elections Saskatoon experienced some issues Wednesday evening, which resulted in significant delays in reporting voting results for the 2024 civic election.

Before polls closed at 8 p.m. Wednesday, the city was confident that much of the results would be posted to its online portal around 9 p.m., but as City Hall was abuzz with reporters and election workers, almost two hours passed before the first round. unofficial results were available online.

“I underestimated how long it would take to download the data from these machines. So not only did it take us time to close the polls at 8 p.m., but it is now taking us just as long to upload the results to our election results web page, Saskatoon returning officer Shellie Bryant said of the first batch of advance polls.

“So yeah, it’s a shame it’s taking so long.”

The unofficial results were printed on long, narrow tickets, which were then pinned to a ballot in the lobby of City Hall while the city worked to post the results online.

It was only shortly before 10 p.m. that nine of the ten advance votes were published on the city’s website. The city says there are three main reasons for the delay.

The main delay was due to long queues at several polling stations. In accordance with the law, at the official closing time, any voter queuing at the polling place has the right to vote. Bryant said ballots were still arriving after 9 p.m. To keep the process fair for everyone, the city did not want results to be available while ballots were still being cast, so no results were released until after voting was over.

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Another delay involved the “significant volume” of mail-in ballots. Many ballots were received by the 8 p.m. deadline, requiring additional time to process, verify and count each ballot.

Another delay concerns electronic vote tabulators, which are supposed to speed up the process. Bryant said she didn’t realize how long it would take for each machine to start once it was removed from its polling location and plugged into City Hall. Getting the machines back online took longer than expected. There were additional unforeseen delays in transferring data to USB devices and then uploading it to the online portal.

By 11:30 p.m., 72 of the city’s 82 polls had been reported, with the final 10 arriving shortly after.

As for voter turnout, the city saw a return to historic norms after 2020 voter turnout was affected by COVID-19 and a snowstorm, which arrived the day before the November 8 municipal elections and dumped about 35 centimeters of snow. Because voters were unable to go out and vote, the elections were extended for the first time in the city’s history, until November 13.

According to unofficial results released Thursday, 68,701 voters cast ballots in the election for mayor, councilors and school trustees, a turnout of 35.04 percent.

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In 2020, 27.4 percent, or 58,734 ballots, were cast, which is significantly lower than the 40.9 percent, or 80,262 ballots cast in 2016.

“We are very pleased with the overall progress of the 2024 civic elections,” Bryant said in a press release. “No major issues were reported at the polling stations, and it was great to see residents engaged and heading to the polls to elect their local leaders for the next four-year term.

“The new modernization processes have been successful and will be analyzed in more detail when reviewing the overall elections.”

Bryant will present a detailed returning officer’s report to the Governance and Priorities Committee following Elections Saskatoon’s full review of the 2024 civic election.