In some countries the electoral legal framework requires voter registration to be linked to a national identification or civil registration system that is controlled by an authority other than the EMB. Countries that have used this method include Colombia, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden. In these cases, voter registration is a purely administrative action. If there is any dispute (for example, if someone is alleged to be registered who is not qualified to vote, or has allegedly been wrongly omitted from the electoral register), the EMB has to determine voter eligibility, not the civil registration authority. In other countries, a body other than the EMB is responsible in electoral law for developing and compiling the electoral register. In Spain, the Electoral Census Office of the National Institute of Statistics is the responsible body, and in countries such as Moldova and South Korea, local authorities prepare the electoral register for the independent EMB.
However the electoral register is compiled, the basic concern is that the data contained in it must be accurate and credible. Voter registration conducted by an EMB under the Independent Model may give electoral registers greater credibility with the public than those derived from or compiled by a government department, even though using existing civil registration or ID system data may be more cost effective. Whatever institution prepares the electoral register data, an EMB must verify that the electoral registers used at polling stations are accurate.
The EMBs in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are responsible for creating the civic list. In Bangladesh and Guyana, the EMBs have the responsibility of issuing national identification documents and voter registration cards. This has worked well in these countries and has made the task of compiling and maintaining the electoral register significantly easier for the EMB. Quality control measures on voter registration, such as opportunities for public inspection by voters, are commonly embedded in electoral laws. In South Africa, as in many developed countries that have (electronic) population registers, the EMB regularly compares its voter registration records with the population register to identify unqualified or ‘phantom’ voters for removal.
One of the most important aspects of an effective voter registration process is ensuring that all eligible voters, women and men, are enfranchised and have access to information and infrastructures for voter registration purposes. Planning and administering a voter registration process that gives women equal access to information and infrastructure is critical for ensuring their right to universal and equal suffrage. This objective can be pursued by strategies such as an active voter registration process in which an EMB is tasked to reach out to potential voters and help them register door to door or using other procedures canvassing large groups of the population. It may also include conducting a broad-based voter information campaign in connection with the planned voter registration process, to explain basic legal and democratic principles underpinning the voter registration process to members in rural and traditionally marginalized communities or groups, or in settings where women may face gender-based barriers that limit their participation in social and political processes.
Reproduced by permission of International IDEA from Electoral Management Design: The International IDEA Handbook © 2014 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance The electronic version of this publication is made available under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication, and to remix and adapt it, provided it is only for non-commercial purposes, that you appropriately attribute the publication and that you distribute it under an identical license. For more information on this licence see: 