No EMB can justify or afford to maintain permanently the number of staff needed for all polling stations (which in a country such as Indonesia require over 4 million staff). Efficiency considerations may also preclude the permanent maintenance of secretariats or subsidiary EMBs at regional and local levels, or the full permanent staffing of functions that are only activated during an election period. For Governmental and Mixed Model EMBs, much of the management structure for major electoral events may be on temporary appointments or seconded from other areas of the public service. Temporary EMB secretariat staff are often not recruited long enough before elections, nor do they stay long enough after elections, to be trained thoroughly for their work.

Each EMB needs to devise appropriate strategies to promote effective use of temporary staff. These strategies could include timely recruitment processes; measures to ensure availability of experienced temporary staff for each electoral event, such as payment of availability retainers; and measures to maintain contact with temporary staff between electoral events such as databases of contact information, newsletters, reunion meetings, or refresher courses. Such measures can be particularly appropriate for EMBs in countries where there is no fixed interval for elections.

This type of approach is not possible, however, for an EMB such as that in Mexico, where temporary polling officials for each election are chosen through a lottery system. Significant lead time, and a very well funded recruitment and training effort, are then essential.