Special
security measures should be taken by the electoral management body to avoid
fraud and mistakes during the process of releasing results.
Only
authorised persons should have access to the combined results (prior to public
release) and modifications to these results should only be done with proper
authorisation.
These
measures should be in place both at the counting centres and at the national
office of the electoral management body.
Access
to the area where the results are being prepared should be limited, but
transparency must still be ensured.
The
computerised systems used, if any, for combining the results should have
safeguards such as passwords, firewall, mirror server, back-ups, etc. No one
other than authorised persons should be able to access the computerised systems
and change results. These persons should be carefully selected and identified
in advance, and they should be required to sign a contract with a
confidentiality clause.
Police,
armed forces personnel, or private security officers should be available on
request by the electoral management body and its electoral officials.
An
electoral management body security contact person should be identified prior to
voting day and should have all specific information needed if the assistance of
security forces is required.
All
counting participants, at the national level or at the counting centre, should
wear proper identification to avoid any confusion.
Identifying
badges or cards should be given to the staff of the electoral management body,
the representatives of political parties and candidates, observers, the media, visiting
dignitaries, etc. If practical, armed forces personnel may be present in the
counting centre and should, as well, be required to wear proper identification.
Armed forces could also be outside the counting center to
safeguard the votes and be called in by the counting officer if needed.
Providing the Official Provisional and Final Results
Results
management system's operational plans often over-look that it must cater for
two distinct yet intertwined tabulation and reporting processes. Given the
intense interest in the election results from political stakeholders, media and
the electorate, EMBs realize that they no longer have the luxury of waiting until
the legal results forms arrives and results verified before announcing final
results. An EMB’s results system must include mechanisms whereby both
provisional and final results are catered for. Most EMBs are therefore
cognizant of the importance of releasing timely provisional results, as this
will give the election authority sufficient time to process the final results.
Equally important, if the release of provisional results is not forthcoming the
EMB could soon find itself being accused of altering the results by some
parties and candidates. Having said that, it’s instrumental that EMBs are not
pressured into releasing results prematurely. The EMBs must give themselves
sufficient time to properly transmit, tabulate and check results
before releasing both interim and final results. In order to manage such
expectations, EMBs must clearly and repeatedly reinforce the expected timeline
for release of results during the lead-up to Election Day, as well as comply
with the timeline and inform the public of any possible delays and clearly
explain the reason for the delay. Thereafter it’s too late.
Given
the intense focus on supplying early provisional results, EMBs are sometimes
focusing almost exclusively on this process generating interim results at the
expense of the final, legally binding, results stream. This could be
devastating as in a tight race, the EMB might decide midstream it cannot
announce an outright winner, or the need for a second round, before it has
verified the provisional results with the actual results forms. Thus, the time
lag between provisional and final results shouldn’t be excessive. In some
countries, a maximum period of time between Election Day and the publication of
certified results is dictated by the legal framework.
The
electoral management body should be the only organization announcing and
releasing the final official results unless judicial structures have a role in
certifying the results. In most cases it should be made clear that the only
official source for any results is the electoral management body.
The Role of the Courts
In some
countries, the judiciary is only involved in the electoral process after the
election when it comes time to take to court offenders of the electoral law or
when a judicial recount is needed.
In other
jurisdictions, the courts may have a significant role to play in confirming the
results of the election; the results only become official once the courts has
certified them. Such confirmation should be done as soon as possible in order
to avoid political instability and potential delays associated with a
transition from a former government to the one elected. As a result, a maximum
number of days between the EMB’s announcement of its final results and the
certification by the court is often part of the legal framework governing
elections.
In some
jurisdictions the court may also be directly involved in the count with the
electoral management body. This will generally be the case if final approval of
the count must come from a judicial structure.
Publishing the Detailed Results
Publishing
the Detailed Results
After
the final certified results are released many jurisdictions require that
detailed voting results be published in the official gazette of the government
or another official publication. Best international praxis indicates that EMBs
are today publishing results by voting stations online using its own website.
Many EMBs scan the actual statement of votes form for each voting station
thereby ensures the transparency requirement for an appropriate results
management system is adhered to.
Legally,
the detailed results are often presented to the legislature, agency,
department, or the administrative entity that the electoral management body
reports to. A courtesy copy of the
published report can be sent to the
different political leaders who ran for the election and to all elected
candidates. A copy of the report could also be made available on the EMB’s
website.
Publishing
this detailed report of the election may take several months of preparation and
production. Due to financial constrains, in some countries candidates and all
other persons, parties, or organization will buy their own copies of the
results from the publisher, or obtain an electronic version from the EMB. As a
general principle, EMBs should seek to provide data in a format that allows
analysis. Providing results from tens of thousands of polling stations, but
only doing so in a human-readable format such as PDF, amounts to a less than
complete commitment to transparency.
Make
the data available in the most generic format possible – such as CSV (comma
separated values) text file or similar.
Once
the final results are known and publicised, the new government should be sworn
in as soon as possible to limit the possible political instability and delays
in the transition of one government to another. This can often take a week or
more, depending on the type of political system used in the country.
Combining Results to Protect the Secrecy of the
Vote
The
electoral management body can merge or amalgamate results of several voting
stations. This is generally done if the voting procedure was such that it may
be possible to identify every person whose vote has gone into a particular
ballot box, or if the number of votes in the ballot box is so small that there
is a significant risk that almost all the votes will be for one candidate or
party.
In such
cases, the secrecy of the vote could be compromised. Results should be
amalgamated with other voting stations. This can also be done in cases where it
appears that the secrecy of individual votes can be secured, but there is real
risk arising from the fact that a particular voting station, having voted
predominantly in a particular way, could result in retribution to the persons
who voted at that voting station.
Mixing
the ballots from two or more boxes from different areas, and then attributing
all the votes to one ballot box with proper notation in the results of this
having been done can mitigate this problem. Such procedures must take place in
the counting centre prior to the ballots being counted.
Merging
results can also be done for incarcerated voters, absentee, or other categories
of voters using special ballots. Since the ballots are usually counted at the
head office of the electoral management body, results can easily be merged with
other results to protect the secrecy of the vote.
For
internal use only, a special notation can be made to keep the audit trail
clear.
