Elections Canada Rules Hamstring MBC Coverage
Monday, January 23, 2006 at 15:11
It will be several weeks before we find out who ends up capturing the critical “Aboriginal vote” in northern Saskatchewan.
Previously on election night, we were able to report to you poll-by-poll results from the Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River riding.
It allowed us to get a rough sense of how candidates fared in communities that are predominantly Aboriginal, as well as mostly non-Aboriginal centres.
But Elections Canada officials have sent a memo to returning officers across the country that releasing results from individual polls will not be allowed this time around.
Spokesman Roger Francis says the results are too preliminary on election night to be releasing that kind of detail.
Francis says poll-by-poll results will eventually be released once the returning officer’s final report is turned in, but that will likely take four to eight weeks.
All three parties are counting heavily on the Aboriginal vote in Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River. Roughly 65 % of the electorate in the riding is of Aboriginal ancestry.