REGINA – Municipal election day is on in Regina, and there appears to be high interest in this vote.
There have been reports of long lineups at some polling stations in the city with wait times of upwards of an hour. At this point it is unclear whether there will be any extension of the time polls will stay open, however the city has previously said that everyone in line when the polls close at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote.
There are hotly contested races going on for Mayor, City Council and for the school board races. In the mayor’s race incumbent Sandra Masters faces 10 challengers, but her main challenge is expected to come from Chad Bachynski, Bill Pratt and outgoing Ward 4 councillor Lori Bresciani.
In the council races, six of the ten wards have no incumbent running which means the majority of councillors elected on Wednesday will be new members of council who didn’t sit in the last term. Another storyline is whether the four incumbent councillors — Ward 2’s Bob Hawkins, Ward 7’s Terina Nelson, Ward 8’s Shanon Zachidniak and Ward 9’s Jason Mancinelli — will be returned to council. Both Hawkins and Mancinelli had been targeted by a Common Sense Regina billboard campaign that had also targeted Masters — ones that sparked some controversy during the campaign.
Also closely watched will be the Regina Public School Board race in the seven subdivisions. Six of the seven incumbents are seeking re-election and they are facing challengers endorsed by the Regina Civic Awareness and Action Network or RCAAN, which is campaigning against “woke” policies being imposed in the public schools.The Regina Catholic School Board race is also going to be closely watched with six positions at stake.
A big question is whether the anti-incumbency mood that saw several incumbents defeated in the provincial election will replicate itself in any of these Regina municipal and school board results. We should get our answer later tonight.
Tabulation machines will be employed in Regina, and the hope from officials is that this may mean an earlier night of declaring winners than was the case in the provincial vote, where there was a longer process of counting paper ballots by hand.
When polls close tonight at 8 p.m. SASKTODAY.ca will be here with regular updates as the returns come in.