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Annex ASpecial Report of the Chief Electoral Officer: Administering an Election during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Substantive Elements of an Election Statute in Response to the Pandemic
Elements Description
1.1 Substantive provisions in the Canada Elections Act that fix polling day as a Monday and the hours of operation of ordinary polls would need to be temporarily superseded in order to set Saturday and Sunday as polling days.
1.2 The electoral calendar would need to be temporarily adjusted to reflect the change from a Monday polling day to a Saturday-and-Sunday polling period, with eight hours of voting per day.
1.3 It is recommended that advance polling days be temporarily moved to Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the polling period to ensure a long enough period between advance polls and ordinary polls and that voting hours be reduced to eight hours each day.
1.4 It is recommended that the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots be moved to 6:00 p.m. on the Monday following the second polling day.
2 It is recommended to allow for more discretion in how and when the vote is administered in long-term care facilities.
3 It is recommended to adjust the adaptation power in section 17 of the Canada Elections Act in order to provide additional flexibility to respond to pandemic related circumstances.