This fall voters will trek to the polls twice amid the uncertainty that is sure to remain pertaining to COVID-19.
The presence of COVID is certainly going to put new pressures on the process of democracy, both at the provincial and municipal level.
Recently, Elections Saskatchewan came out with an estimate it will need 400,000 face masks and thousands of litres of hand sanitizer and disinfectant to keep people safe at the polls this fall.
That will of course mean some added costs, with the independent body working to source about $425,000 worth of personal protective supplies.
If there is a need for such protections for the provincial election set for Oct. 26, then municipalities will need to address similar concerns when elections for urban mayors and councils are held a scant few days later; Nov. 9.
At present the concern over COVID come election days does seem to be mostly precautionary as the number of active and daily new cases of the infection has been low for some time now.
However, peer over the border to the United States and it’s also rather easy to see how gatherings without precautions can have infection rates spiking upwards, and with more infections come the inevitable additional deaths.
The conundrum in terms of the elections is that older people, those most at risk from COVID-19 in terms of death, are generally the most avid voters. Perhaps because they have been part of making their city, province, country what it is for longer, they take the freedom to vote to heart and they get out and do their civic duty to elect the next people to continue our community development.
So those most at risk are the ones the precautions at the polls will aid the most, making it important that the rest of voters make sure they follow the guidelines so everyone can safely cast their vote.
Of course the elephant in the room come both fall elections will be the effect of COVID-19 on voter turnout.
It seems voters need less and less of an excuse these days not to turn out on election day, which of course is a huge disservice to the democracy we should hold dear as it has been something where many have died through the years protecting its existence.
Staying home come Election Day for any reason is something that should be considered only in the most dire circumstances. As it stands today, COVID-19 in Saskatchewan does not seem that dire a situation given the numbers.
We hope that come October and November the numbers are still under control.
However the reality of the past four months around the world show that things can change very quickly in the face of a pandemic, so the cloud of uncertainty will hang over the dual elections as they draw nearer.
