Working definitions of election costs in a core-costing model
According to the current standard theory and practice of elections, the main expenses are incurred for the following activities: voter registration, boundary delimitation, the voting operation, counting and transmission of results, dispute adjudication, voter education and information, campaigning by political parties and candidates, and vigilance or oversight by party representatives and domestic or international observers (Goodwin-Gill 1994; López-Pintor 2000; OSCE 2001; EU 2002; IDEA 2002). Consequently, electoral costs include all the costs incurred in undertaking such activities, regardless of the kind of agency involved, whether national or local, public or private.
Types of electoral costs
Voter registration, boundary delimitation, the voting operation, counting and transmission of results and dispute adjudication are almost invariably conducted by various forms of EMBs (i.e., the executive branch of government, officials under the supervision of an electoral commission or an independent electoral commission). Providing voter education and information, may be shared by electoral authorities, political parties and civil society organizations, while the seventh (campaign activities) is exclusively conducted by political parties and candidates. The main variable for cost analysis may therefore be directly related to the specific organization or entity in charge of a given electoral activity—one or several organizations within the national government, local governments, judiciaries, private firms (e.g., quasi-public postal service and telecommunications), NGOs and political parties.
The electoral budget during an election year may cover one or several elections, and in the latter case one should consider whether elections are held simultaneously or separately on different dates. These factors heavily influence the overall budget figures as well as their distribution by budget line item.
Number and time sequence of elections are variables that make it difficult to compare electoral costs among different countries. It is not always easy to split budgets and assign costs to different elections.
A distinction between personnel costs and operational costs is generally used as the main structuring criteria in an electoral budget.
Over time, there are fixed costs for the ordinary functioning of an electoral administration; these costs are incurred independently of the occurrence of elections in a given year. Variable costs, meanwhile, are those related to the actual conduct of elections. Almost the entire budget for a specific election consists of variable costs.
With the term funding source, three main distinctions can be made. One is between a) a separate electoral budget that is part of the consolidated budget of the nation and b) election-tied funds that form part of the budget of public agencies whose main responsibilities have little or nothing to do with elections (i.e. civil registries, police and postal services). Another distinction, between national and international funding of electoral budgets, is of utmost relevance in the case of post-conflict elections and even second-generation elections in emerging democracies. A third distinction, between public and private funding, is applicable primarily in regards to the funding of political parties and electoral campaigns.
Electoral-budget costs that can be readily identified on a budget document are called direct costs. There are also diffuse costs—those that may prove difficult or impossible to accurately assess even if properly identified. This category can be further divided by degrees of diffusiveness; for example, some costs for activities can be clearly identified, yet still cannot be disentangled from within the general budget of the agency involved (i.e. the contribution of civil registries in providing information to EMBs for the production of voter lists; or the production of voter lists by the national agency in charge of censuses and statistics). Obtaining specific information about such costs is frequently impossible because activity-focused cost audit are not often practiced by organizations responsible for a multiplicity of programs, such as those mentioned above. As noted above in the funding source category, other diffuse costs may include actual costs hiding beneath the ordinary operations of agencies that lend various forms of support to the electoral process (i.e., police force, postal services, school
systems, local governments and public TV). While these are real costs, they are neither included in the electoral budget nor are they easy to assess in many cases.
An additional and very important distinction is between integrity costs and core costs. This distinction may be essential for an adequate understanding of the funding of elections, most notably in emerging and post-conflict democracies. It has much to do with conditions ensuring a safe, politically neutral environment and a level playing field.
The integrity of the voting operation is mainly a function of voter security and ballot security. Voter security includes ensuring the safety of individual voters and of voting and counting facilities; removing threats and intimidation factors; and guaranteeing accessibility to polling stations. Security of the ballot implies arranging the voting and counting in such a way that the voter lists, ballot papers, tallies and other result records are tamper-proof. The main objectives are to preserve secrecy of the vote (disposition of the voting booth), to avoid double voting (a safe ballot box, use of indelible ink), and to eliminate undue manipulation of voting materials (printing control, storage and transport). The presence of party representatives and electoral observers—both domestic and international—may be required at the voting and counting locations.
In summary, integrity costs generally concern security arrangements for registration and polling places. They may include funding for international personnel serving as part of the electoral administration; tamper-resistant electoral materials necessitated by a low level of trust among contenders; long-term electoral observer missions; intensive voter education campaigns and election publicity; and assistance to political parties at national and local levels as part of a broader approach to capacity building.
Those costs routinely associated with carrying out elections are designated as core costs. They are incurred independently of the degree of uncertainty and security of the political environment and have to do with voter lists, voting materials, competence among polling officials, voter information, and organizational and logistical arrangements. Core costs are assumed to be fixed rather than variable; integrity costs are incurred when special and often unexpected expenses are required to ensure that the process works efficiently.
The relative proportion of overall election costs that can be attributed to integrity or core costs generally depends on how far removed the politics of a given country are from conflict and lack of security. In a recent assessment of post-conflict elections, the following dummy exercise offered a useful indication of how costs may be structured.
Developing a methodology for electoral cost assessment
The classification of electoral costs are defined in Types of Electoral Costs serve as the basis for developing cost-assessment methodologies. The following steps are required:
- Define the political environment—to be taken as a constant factor—a necessary consideration regardless of whether a democracy is stable, transitional or post-conflict.
- Consider whether the electoral budget of an election year is covering one or several elections; and in the latter case, whether elections are to be held simultaneously or separately.
- Separate fixed costs of the ordinary functioning of the EMB from variable costs as specific for a given election—and then distinguish between personnel and operational costs if relevant for the budget of a particular event.
- Identify the list of election-related activities, which may include voter registration, boundary delimitation, the voting operation, counting and transmission of results, dispute adjudication, voter education and information, and campaigning by political parties and candidates.
- Separate core costs and integrity costs in relation to each of the activities listed in D above.
- Consider separately the direct and diffuse costs incurred by different organizations involved in electoral activities as core and integrity costs. Quantify direct costs precisely, and estimate diffuse costs based on contextual figures or best-educated guesses.
- Identify the funding source for each cost category, whether national or external, public or private.
- Finally, make the necessary adjustments in comparing cost evolution over time (increase/decrease in the overall cost or in particular budget line items) for within a given country or among different countries, by including capital and equipment investments as well as amortizations. In both cases, indexing the currency in constant values for a given year may be necessary.
Table 1 (below) shows the frequency and intensity with which different costs are incurred, depending on the democracy environment.
Three trends are apparent when comparing electoral scenarios in stable, transitional and post-conflict democracies.
First, integrity costs are relatively higher in transitional than in stable democracies, and still higher in post-conflict situations. This is primarily, although not exclusively, due to the requirement of police and military to handle security at every stage of the electoral process, frequently with the presence of an international force.
Second, diffuse core costs are particularly extensive in stable democracies where a large part of the actual electoral expense is covered by budgets from different state administrations; in such environments, it is not always easy or feasible to quantify which part of their budgets are devoted to electoral activities. On the other hand, diffuse integrity costs are greater in transitional and post-conflict environments because of the need for funding from a peacekeeping budget, which are difficult to quantify. Diffuse costs attributable to political party finance are substantial and difficult to quantify in both stable and other democracies.
Third, the existence and amount of vigilance costs could be reduced to some core costs for party agents in stable democracies, but would expand to domestic and international observers in the other democracy environments, especially in post-conflict situations.
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Voter registration costs
