Why did it take so long to get election results in Regina?

Regina residents waited until after midnight to learn the results of the city’s municipal elections.

Jim Nicol, Elections Regina’s chief returning officer, said the delay was largely due to the fact that many people were still in line waiting to vote at 8 p.m. on election night, with some people casting ballots as late as 9:30 p.m.

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“Then, of course, they have to close the poll,” Nicol explained. “They have some balancing to do, and it takes about at least 20 minutes for the electronic vote tabulating machines to run and finish everything before the results are forwarded to us at  the election office and here at City Hall.”

Nicol said it shows that there were a lot of voters participating in the elections, which is good news.

“I was getting texts from family and friends all day saying, ‘Wow, the line is really long,’ or ‘Uncle Jim, I’ve been here for an hour and a half,’” said  Nicol.

“It’s not a bad problem to have, except if you’re the one in line.”

Another issue on election night, which Nicol said is not uncommon, was absent workers.

“People phoning in and saying ‘I’m not doing this,’ or they quit the night before,” he explained.

“We had a number of polling stations that, when they opened with their  workers, they were short, and so we were scrambling to get substitute workers to come, and there were also times we were moving workers from different polls to busier polls.”

Nicol said it caused a lot of scrambling, but said elections staff were reacting as fast as they could.

Meanwhile, Nicol said there is a lot of work ahead getting new councillors up to speed.

“We have a big job ahead to start the orientation on the onboarding with the new council,” he said.

“As it stands, we are going to have nine new members, and it’s going to be a big task, and it’s a steep learning curve, and we’ll be getting right into it in early December, with the budget deliberations expected to be in March.”

Final election results, including data on voter turnout, are expected to be made public at 1 p.m. on Thursday.