Provincial election should be pushed back, not municipal election: Saskatoon mayor

Saskatoon's mayor says having a provincial and municipal election just days apart is a bad idea. 

"To have them just a couple weeks apart in the same season, I think that would create a lot of confusion for the public," Charlie Clark said. 

As of now, people in Saskatoon are scheduled to vote in both provincial and municipal elections in Fall 2020 — and they are not alone.

Municipalities right across the province are scheduled to go to the polls just days before the provincial election. The province has asked municipalities if there is any issue moving the dates ahead a whole year so they don't interfere with the provincial date. 

Saskatoon has an election scheduled for October 28, 2020, five days before the provincial election scheduled for November 2, 2020.

Clark says moving the date is possible, but he wants the provincial election moved instead. 

"Provincially people are used to having a spring election or a fall election, those dates have more typically moved around so people can adapt," he said. 

Gordon Barnhart, the president of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association, says his members don't necessarily want the provincial election date moved but are in favour of putting more space between the two election dates. 

He says asking town and city councillors to stay on until 2021 may pose some problems.

"There may be some resignations of people just saying 'hey, I signed up for four years and now I'm being asked to serve five.' Which means there would be a series of by-elections, which have a cost to them," Barnhart said. 

'Voter fatigue'

Saskatchewan's Chief Electoral Officer, Michael Boda, says the challenges of having elections overlap are two-fold.  First and foremost there are challenges for voters. 

"There are two elections which are very close together, which leads to an inability of the voters to have the time that is necessary to be exposed to the issues for a particular election," he said in an interview with CBC News.

Boda continued that it would be difficult for people to think carefully and vote knowledgeably on two elections packed so closely together. 

The second challenge lies with capacity. 

"We hire about 12,000 people to run an election in the province and the municipalities will hire a similar number," he said.

 "So it just doesn't make it feasible from an election administration stand point to have [two elections so close]."

Last spring, Boda was working on ways to prevent conflict between the two election cycles and prevent what he called "voter fatigue."

'The ultimate goal'

Boda said there is already legislation that helps guide what to do when federal and provincial elections overlap, but nothing for when the provincial and municipal level are in conflict.

He said the "ultimate goal" is to be able to have a one-year gap between federal, provincial and municipal elections. 

If bumping back the civic election is approved, it would mean the current mayor and councillors would serve a five year term. 

The province has requested to hear from the city later this week.

In a statement to CBC News, the Ministry of Government Relations said it is consulting with municipal and school board stakeholders on possible changes to municipal election dates.

The statement said moving municipal elections one year from October 2020 to October 2021 is a potential option, but at this time no decisions have been made.