Canadians who plan to vote in the upcoming federal election without a mask should plan to vote by mail unless they have a medical exemption, the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada has said. 

Stephane Perrault told CTV News that voting stations will be “highly controlled” with “essentially the kind of measures that [Canadians] now have been seeing for the last 18 months.” This will include the distribution of masks, use of hand sanitizer and disposable pencils.

Demand for mail-in ballots is expected to increase this year, possibly to two or three million ballots, as opposed to 50,000 during the 2019 election. Elections Canada has reportedly increased its capacity to process mail-in votes, including implementing an online registration system. 

Perrault also noted that it may take a few days for Elections Canada to release official results, depending on the number of mail-in ballots. 

The federal election is set to take place on September 20.