The mandate to conduct voter education may come from a variety of sources, for example through legislation or a mission statement. Beyond this mandate, however, those responsible for voter education will want to negotiate the aims and parameters of a particular voter educaton programme with participants in the process, including the election authority, the election contestants and civil society. Each of these has a role to pay within the electoral process and, as such, will have an interest in the voter education effots.

This section discusses each of these stakeholders, reviews their roles in ensuring that an essentially competitive activity - bidding for power conferred by citizens - is also a collaborative exercize, and then suggests ways in which the aims and parameters of a voter education programme can be articulated in a participatory way.