EMB members need a very high level of management skills and commitment to maintaining integrity under pressure.

Given the range of skills necessary to ensure that an EMB can function effectively – such as legal, communications, education, logistics, corporate management – it would seem useful for the EMB to include members with a wide range of appropriate skills. Public confidence in EMBs is enhanced where the electoral legislation contains qualifications for appointment to EMBs that are clearly defined and appropriate for the complex task of impartially managing electoral processes, and mechanisms for selection and appointment that are transparent and based on the candidates’ merits. The mode of selection and appointment, and provisions for tenure, of members of the EMB vary from one country to another.

There are various titles for the members of EMBs, with similar meaning, but each with its own nuances, related to the basis, role, and powers of the policy-making members of the EMB. In Canada, where the Chief Electoral Officer is both the chief and sole policy maker and the head of administration (secretariat), he or she is called the EMB member or commissioner. ‘Commissioner’, however, is a term that is inconsistently applied. In Australia, the Electoral Commissioner is both the head of the secretariat and a full voting member of the EMB (although not the head of the EMB), while the deputy and assistant commissioners are staff of the secretariat. Similarly, the Jamaican Director of Elections, who is both the head of the secretariat and also a member of the EMB (but without a vote), may be referred to as a Commissioner. In Francophone countries and Latin America, the head of the EMB may be termed ‘President’.

Some EMBs have a chair who by law is known as the Chief Electoral Commissioner, and who serves as the EMB’s chief executive. The role of such a chair should be understood in the same way as that of an executive chair or executive director in the corporate world. Unlike other chairs in other EMBs, the Chief Electoral Commissioner has executive powers and is more hands-on in directing the electoral process. Although he or she may be assisted by other commissioners and the secretariat, the Chief Electoral Commissioner in these countries will have the final say in matters of finance and administration and also on key aspects of the electoral process.