Technology for Regulation of Party and Candidates
Technology such as computer office automation software products can be used to assist election management bodies (EMBs) to control the registration of parties and candidates to participate in elections.
The registration of parties and candidates processes that can benefit from the use of technology include:
- party registration, including party member verification processes and party information databases
candidate nomination, including nominator verification processes and candidate information databases
providing information to parties, including voter register data and other general communications
monitoring and control of party and campaign financing, including candidate/party donations, candidate/party expenditure, public funding and audit
Party Registration
Technology can be used by election management bodies (EMBs) to register political parties for participation in elections. In particular, computer software can be used in the process of determining whether a party has the right to be registered and for creating and maintaining a political party’s register.
Party member verification
In many countries, a political party has to meet a minimum membership requirement in order to be officially registered as a party and to participate in elections. An EMB can verify that a party has met this requirement by using software programmed to analyse the party's claims of membership status.
The use of computer software requires party membership data to be captured electronically. In many cases, parties already have digital membership lists, and they are able to provide them to an EMB using an electronic storage media, such as tapes, floppy disks, CD-Rom and DVDs or by email.
Where parties do not have digital copies of their lists, they can usually supply hardcopy lists. These need to be converted into electronic form either by manually entering the data into a database or spreadsheet software, or by scanning the lists using an optical scanner equipped with intelligent character recognition software. If there is a need to digitise signatures or photographs of party members, image scanning can also be used.
Once party membership lists are available electronically, database, spreadsheet or custom made software can be used to process them and produce lists according to various criteria. The software can then be used, for instance, to verify that members are not listed twice or that one person does not appear as a member of several parties twice. By using mail merge software, it is also possible to generate letters , to persons on the membership lists to request confirmation of their party membership. Bar codes can be used on the replies to speed the data entry of responses.
If only a sample of persons on a party membership list is to be contacted in the above manner, software can be used to extract the needed random samples.
Where the EMB has access to a voter’s register with digitalised voter signatures, photographs or/and finger prints, signature or bio data recognition technology may be used to verify that the identities submitted as party members are genuine.
Party information databases
Once a party has been registered, the EMB usually requires its details to be kept on file. Database management software is recommended for maintaining this information, although a simple register can be kept on a word processor or spreadsheet system.
Where party register details have to be made publicly available, this can be achieved by providing them in hardcopy and electronic format. Details could be published on the Internet to allow easy access for those with Internet capability. For a large, complex or regularly changing party register, the Internet copy of the register could be linked to the party register database to allow for automatic updating of the Internet version.
Providing Information To Parties
Technology can be used to provide a wide variety of information to parties and candidates.
Information from voters register
Many countries require the election management body (EMB) to supply information from its voters register to registered parties, elected members of parliament and/or election candidates. Where there is a computerized voter’s register, this is a relatively straightforward process.
Data from voters’ registers can be supplied to parties, members and candidates in hardcopy form or electronic form. Since many voters’ registers can contain many names, these registers can be quite large, making hardcopy alternatives on paper or microfiche bulky and costly to produce. Electronic forms of voters’ registers are generally cheaper and easier to produce. Electronic forms could include copies written to floppy disk, CD-ROM or magnetic tape, or copies provided by email or downloadable from the Internet.
As voters’ registers usually contain personal data, they are often covered by privacy restrictions. EMBs will need to ensure that information from voters registers supplied to parties, members or candidates is supplied in accordance with relevant legislation and guidelines and is protected from unauthorized access or misuse.
The form in which electronic data is supplied to parties, members or candidates might depend on the specific need for the data, the amount of data supplied, and the users’ technological sophistication.
Data can be supplied in text, ASCI and Rich Text Format (rtf) format which can be read not only by all the widely used word processing software packages but also by other kinds of software programs as well. Very often, though, data is supplied in one of the proprietary word processing, spreadsheet or database file format that may or may not be read by the users’ software packages. If possible, it is desirable to offer the data in a range of formats to suit the needs of the different users.
In addition to supplying voter register data in a simple list format, it may also be desirable (or required by policy or legislation) to supply a software package where together with the data a program is included to work under one of the widely used operating systems that can be used by itself in a computer and dispensing the need for additional software. Such a package can include various database functions, including the ability to search, view and print data based on a variety of criteria.
General communications
Technology can also be used for general communication with political parties and candidates. Emails and faxes can be used to contact parties and candidates quickly and, if necessary, in bulk. Where party and candidate contact details are captured electronically, mail merge facilities in databases and word processing systems can be used to send generic or customized letters to parties and candidates.
Party And Campaign Financing - Regulation and Reporting
Many countries have legislative regulation of party and campaign financing. A typical regulatory scheme might involve public disclosure of campaign donations, expenditure and debts, as well as payment of public funds to parties and candidates for campaign expenses. Some countries also limit the amount of campaign expenditure permitted by candidates and/or parties. Technology can be used to assist with the party and campaign financing regulatory role of the election management body (EMB) or other relevant regulatory body.
Reporting by parties and candidates
Technology can be used to facilitate the reporting requirements of a party and campaign financing scheme. Party and campaign financing reports may require detailed and complex data to be produced. Electronic data capture of report details can greatly assist an EMB in its regulatory and reporting requirements. Electronic submission of data by candidates and parties can also help them fulfil their requirements correctly and expeditiously.
Candidates and parties can submit electronic campaign finance returns using software packages supplied by the EMB or other relevant regulatory body. This software would typically contain electronic forms, with specified fields to be completed. This software could be distributed by disk or email, or could be provided via the internet. The software could lead the party or candidate through the reporting process, ensuring that all relevant fields are correctly completed.
Where parties and candidates do not submit electronic finance returns (either because the facility is not available or the party or candidate is unable to) and hardcopy returns are submitted, the EMB or other relevant regulatory body may still find it useful to electronically capture the data using data entry operators or optical scanning methods.
Auditing of party and candidate campaign finance reports
The EMB or other relevant regulatory body responsible for auditing party and candidate campaign finance reports can use technology to assist the auditing process.
Once reported data has been captured electronically, software can be used to store, sort and analyse the data. Partial amounts can be consolidated into relevant totals. This can help identify whether amounts donated or received have bypassed any legislative thresholds.
Where different entities are required to report their involvement with common transactions (for example, where donors are required to disclose amounts donated and recipients are required to disclose amounts received), reported amounts from one entity can be cross-checked against corresponding amounts from another. Use of mandatory fields in databases can indicate where data is missing or incomplete.
Software can also be used to amalgamate and consolidate reported data, so that data submitted at a local level can be consolidated at regional and national levels to give an overall picture that cannot readily be perceived from the local reports.
Electronic capture of financial reporting can also be used to determine levels of public funding payable for campaign expenses, where such payment is linked to actual expenditure.
Public disclosure of party and candidate campaign finance reports
The EMB or other relevant regulatory body responsible for auditing party and candidate campaign finance reports is also likely to be responsible for publishing the reported data in a form that can be used by the general public. Again, technology can assist this process.
Electronic capture of reported data and software manipulating of that data can enable the regulatory body to present the data in a consistent format, and to consolidate the data to show regional and national totals that may not be apparent from the raw returns. Data can be published in a variety of formats, including paper hardcopy, CD-ROM, disk and Internet.
Where original hardcopy returns are required to be made public, in addition to providing photocopies, these can be optically scanned and made available on CD-ROM or the Internet.
Candidate Nomination
Technology can be used to assist an election management body (EMB) to process and verify candidates' nominations.
In many countries, a candidate has to be nominated by a specified number of registered voters or by a specified office holder of a registered political party. An EMB can verify that a candidate's nomination has met the relevant criteria by using technology to assist in analysing the candidate's nomination.
In some cases, it may be necessary to record electronically the details submitted with a candidate's nomination or to request the candidate and/or the nominators to supply the data electronically. An EMB could assist with this process by distributing—via disk, email or the Internet—software that is programmed with the necessary forms for the data to be entered into.
Where data needs to be electronically captured but the candidate and/or the nominators are unable to supply electronic data, hard copy nominations are usually supplied. These can be digitalised either through data-entry into the appropriate software or by scanning the lists using an optical scanner equipped with intelligent character recognition software.
Once data has been digitalised, a database management system, a spreadsheet or other customised software may be used to process the nominations. The software can also be used to generate reports or mail merge letters as needed (using also a word processor or a report writer).
If details on nomination forms have to be verified, such as whether candidates or nominators are registered voters, or whether a person shown as a party official is appropriately registered for the purpose, relevant databases or spreadsheets can be consulted.
Technology can be also be used to verify signatures shown on nomination forms. EMBs can assist in this process if they have access to a digitised record of voter signatures (such as a digitised voter register or national identity database where that data is recorded). For relatively small numbers of signatures, an operator would be able to manually compare signatures on nomination forms with signatures on digitised records displayed on screen or printed out. Where large numbers of signatures need to be checked, signature recognition technology might be used to verify that the identities submitted are genuine.
Once all nominations have been accepted, their details are usually required to be made public; digitalisation of nomination information can expedite public disclosure.
There are additional advantages for EMBs to digitalise the candidates’ nomination data. Once this data is stored in a database management system, for instance, it can be linked to other systems that require the same data, such as those used in ballot paper production, election results tallying, public notification and voting place management.
When nomination data has to be made publicly available, this can be achieved by providing information in both hardcopy and in electronic format, including the Internet if available. In this case, it may be useful to have the Internet copy of the nominations data linked to the nominations database to ensure the automatic updating of the Internet version.
