Elections SK hosts post-election conference with field leaders

June 23, 2016 – Saskatchewan’s Field Leadership Team (FLT) gathered in Moose Jaw June 23-24 to share their thoughts and suggestions following Saskatchewan’s 28th General Election on April 4, 2016.

Participating in the two-day conference were Elections Saskatchewan’s supervisory returning officers, returning officers, election clerks, deputy supervisory returning officers and assistant supervisory returning officers from all 61 constituencies.

“The three fundamentals of election success are service to stakeholders, integrity and a committed election workforce,” says Dr. Michael Boda, Chief Electoral Officer of Saskatchewan. “Our senior field leaders worked diligently to oversee a successful election in each of their constituencies before, during and after election day. They have tremendous ideas and valuable feedback on what went well in the election, and what we can continue to improve on for the next general election.”

“During the course of the electoral cycle, I have reinforced the importance of what every member of our FLT does. Part of this conference included a short ceremony to award each senior field leader with a certificate of recognition as a formal thank you for their contributions to our province.”

The conference included:

• An overview of highlights from Elections Saskatchewan’s primary service lines of Operations, Corporate Services and Electoral Finance, and Outreach and Policy;
• An overview of the formal assessment of the election lead by:
  • Ed Killesteyn, former Australian Electoral Commissioner;
  • Michael Atkinson, a professor in the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy and associate member, Department of Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, and
  • Jessica McCutcheon with the Social Sciences Research Lab from the University of Saskatchewan and project manager of the survey research component of Elections Saskatchewan’s assessment project.

“This was a very successful election,” says Dr. Boda. “The results were accepted by the public, parties, candidates and media. We registered more than 92 percent of eligible voters, with more than 750,000 added to the permanent register of voters. More candidates (268) put their name forward than any previous Saskatchewan provincial election. And voter participation increased slightly, following 30 years of decline in our province.”

“This essentially wraps up the involvement of our field leadership team, who are appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer and were hired through independent, merit-based competitions. In my closing remarks at the conference, I encouraged all of these field leaders to re-apply for future appointments as senior field leaders and help us prepare and eventually deliver Saskatchewan’s 29th General Election.”

Elections Saskatchewan is the province’s independent, impartial, professional election management body. Given a mandate from the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly, it organizes, manages and oversees provincial electoral events.

For more information contact:

Tim Kydd 
Senior Director 
Communications & Outreach
Elections Saskatchewan 
tim.kydd@elections.sk.ca
(306) 787-7355