Assessing the Context

As election authorities and civil society groups go about designing voter education programmes, it will be essential for them to understand the context in which such programmes will be conducted. This assessment should embrace an understanding of the legal framework for elections, the political dynamics, the electorate, both generally and with respect to target groups, and the resources available to implement the programme.

Contextual assessments will be even more important in transitional settings where there are likely to be significant changes in the electoral environment. These may include a new constitution, recently adoped or amended electoral laws, changes to election practice, the introduction of new representational systems or election technologies, the creation of a permanent election authority or representative bodies at the local level, the growth of political parties and civil society groups, the enfranchisement of certain parts of the population, the mass movement of citizens (including persons displaced as a result of war), improvements in or perhaps the decay of the county's infrastructure, a proliferation of media outlets, and so on.

Understanding the context contributes to ensuring that programmes are relevant, efficacious, and significant. It is also essential to ensuring programmes are not only cost effective but diligently evaluated upon completion.

With respect to the electorate, educators will want to know basic background information and will then, using the best techniques available, establish the educational needs of the general electorate as well as target constituencies.

Voter Background

Time spent understanding the voters who are eligible to participate in an election helps to ensure the the voter education programme adequately meets the needs of the electorate, which is the ultimate purpose of the undertaking, and not just conforming with some pre-conceived notion of those charged with educating voters.

Even if there are regular elections, educators cannot assume they know everything there is to know about the particular electorate for the next election. First, there will always be people who will be voting for the first time. This may involve young people who have just reached the age requirement for voting. It may involve those who have recently been granted citizenship and are eligible to vote for the first time. Or it may even involve previously apathetic voters who have been energized by a particular issue, candidate, or political party get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort.

In addition, neither a particular group of voters nor the electoral system itself should be considered static. Even those who vote regularly may have new concerns or may have developed new socioeconomic lifestyles. Such factors can make a difference both to the type of information that needs to be communicated and the method by which it is communicated. Also there may be changes to the electoral system, such as the application of new technologies or changes in ballot design to accomodate an increased number of candidates or public initiatives, that will need to be emphasized and explained through education.

Recent events in the State of Florida, during the 2000 presidential elections in the U.S., demonstrate how even in a relatively developed election system, inadequate voter education with respect to both experienced and first time voters can have significant ramifications relative to the efficiency of election administration, the efficacy of each vote, and the determiniation of election results.

In transitional societies and developing countries there will be a plethora of reasons to conduct voter education programmes. Due to the youthfulness of the population, expansion of the franchise, or the even the novelty of elections at all or some levels, there will be a significant number of first time voters. And the constitutional and legal framework for elections as well as procedures for registering to vote and casting ballots, may be radically different than in the past.

In addition to the more specific information which will be considered in Assessing Voter Needs, education planners will want to get reliable demographic information that includes:

• where people live
• how many people live there
• cultural and religious norms
• literacy and schooling levels
• levels of voter participation in previous elections

Consideration of Demographics in Shaping Voter Education

Who Lives Where?

This question may be the first and most basic question educators need to ask when developing a universal programme, whether it is national, regional, or local in scope. In fact, the word demography is closely related to democracy and might be said to be a basis for discussions about representation and governance.

Census Information

The question of who lives where is usually answered through a national census. Where these are conducted regularly by credible organizations in circumstances where there is no incentive to avoid being counted and where there is no likelihood of administrative error during the count or during the processing of results, there will be reliable data available for educators. In transitional settings, however, when borders have been redrawn or where there has been significant migration of or changes in the population, there may be no timely census data available. This may be the result either of the fluidity of the political environment, limited or nonexistant financial resources, or the absense of an experienced and publicly accepted institution to carry out a census.

Ideally, data collected through a census should include information about age groups, such as how many people there are of different age groups, gender and socioeconomic data, and some basic household information. All this will be available according to geographic area, and these geographic areas may include very small areas designed for enumeration. All this valuable information may be available on geographic information systems (GIS) software which enables very close map-based planning. Or it may be presented in charts and graphs, booklets, or tables. In some transitional settings, even if the will and the means exist to collect population data, it may be very difficult to obtain such information from a government agency that does not operate in a transparent manner or does not consider itself accountable to the public.

The manner in which these counts can take place varies according to the type of society and the resources available. In general, a census is a complete count of every single household, and for this reason they are done periodically, usually every five or ten years. A census can be expensive and requires considerable planning. Countries may try to ensure that a census and a national election do not coincide.

They are also controversial. The results of a census are used for national planning and for demarcation of election boundaries (see Population Data). In many countries the numbers of people in each state or region has a direct bearing on the number of people who can be elected from that state or region. For this reason, the results of a census are likely to be scrutinised very carefully. The questions that are asked determine what information is available to planners and politicians, and can affect national perceptions of an area, especially if it is found to have a large number of people who speak a particular language or describe themselves in certain ways.

Because of these controversies, there is considerable checking of census outcomes. One way in which this is done is by conducting sample surveys to test the data; another is by looking at longitudinal information such as mortality studies and general population movement estimates. But, also because of these controversies, there may be data which has to be checked against other information. In countries with porous borders, where there has been conflict, where the institution collecting population data is suspect, or where the collection of revised household data might result in the loss of benefits provided by the state, people may choose not to make themselves known.

While a census is normally done on a universal basis, countries with large informal urban settlements may find it difficult to manage. In some situations, aerial photography and sample data on the number of people per dwelling may be used to obtain best estimates.

Census Data Used with Caution

Educators will want to treat census date with some caution; and may want to use it in conjunction with data collected during voter registration or with additional information obtained from those working in a particular area. Despite this caution, election authorities without census information are at a distinct disadvantage. In the case of new country or administrative boundaries, for instance, or because a census has not been conducted for many years, election authorities are likely to underplan or overplan. The latter choice, while expensive, may be preferable.

Basic Information Needed

Educators will want to be able to divide the country into electoral districts and have available for each district the following basic information:

• total number of people
• number of men and women
• number of people of voting age
• number of people between 18 and 25, 26 and 40, and above 65
• types of dwellings in which these people live
• income distribution
• primary language used in the household

Having information that identifies, even in very gross terms, the socioeconomic status of people, whether by the type of dwelling or their household income, provides some indication of a range of other likely living patterns. Knowing which people are young, and possibly voting for the first time. and which are old and therefore require some special attention will also be useful. In all of these cases, educators will want to apply other information they have at their disposal to interpret the demographic data.

Interpreting Data

Interpreting the profile of people from their age or income requires an understanding of the culture of the country. Do people go to work at a very young age? What is the average life span? How healthy are people? At what age do people tend to have children? What ranges of income are considered poor or affluent, and how is that expressed in people's life styles and life choices?

Sources of Information

Educators can attempt to obtain demographic information by starting with national census bureaus or the relevant government departments, and then searching for similar information collated internationally through the World Bank, World Health Organisation, or the United Nations and its related bodies. If they are fortunate, this information will be available on computer, and if they are extremely fortunate, they will have access to up-to-date GIS. However the information is available, it will be time-bound and will have to be corrected according to the best possible estimates.

The Role of Election Authorities

Because an election authority has such an urgent need for good demographic information, it will want to discuss with state agencies and offices ways in which existing information can be improved. This is a general function rather than one specific to elections. But obtaining the most timely and accurate data on the population will help with a whole host of election plans ranging from the design of the voter education programme to determining the number of eligible voters. The latter will influence the number of voting areas, the number of ballots to be printed, the amount of election supplies required, and the number of poll workers to be appointed, etc. As such, educators will want access to population data and suggest certain additional information of a socioeconomic and attitudinal nature that might be collected.

Cultural and Religious Norms

Civic and voter education should be culturally sensitive. The manner in which the education programme approaches people, the language/s used, the methods adopted, the communication means employed, and the styles of the educators all have to take into account the constituency's cultural and religious predilections.

These predilections can be a barrier, a trap, or a window. Whichever they are, educators will always have a dialectic relationship with them. Education is, by its very nature, subversive of the status quo. It offers insights into new vistas, and these may encourage individuals and groups of individuals to reflect critically on the norms that they take for granted. Given that voter education programmes are driven not only by the needs of the electorate but also by the demands of the state, educators will want to be cautious in their interactions with people's culture and religion.

There is no requirement to call these norms into question if they are in conflict with the election message. And yet, civic and voter education will inevitably expose practices that do not conform with increasingly universal values. This is a dilemma with which educators will have to contend. The horns of this dilemma are most stark in countries that do not have a democratic system of government. Even in democratic countries, however, it may arise within minority groups.

The Barrier

Culture and religion may represent a barrier to the educator because they create societies that have their own symbols and language. These societies are not always closed, but when they do recognise outsiders they may be suspicious of them.

They may have established opinions and traditions about the role and accessibility of education, and about what democracy is and whether it is acceptable. In turn, different cultures may have strong opinions about who can or cannot educate men, women, or even children. They may have concepts of leadership and authority that are at odds with the general equality proposed as the bedrock of representative democracy.

At the very least, there may be unspoken subtleties about educational methodology. Teaching and learning styles may have been set by their own cultural and religious practices, so that innovations such as small group work, interactive teaching methods, exercizes in critical thinking, the use of evalutive questionnaires, and the use of audio-visual aids may result in scepticism, or affable but reluctant tolerance.

The Trap

Of course, these barriers may easily turn into traps that can snare educators. Culture and religion can be used to ensure that ordinary people who may well want good education about the election or their rights as citizens are denied access to this education. In these situations, any lack of cultural or religious sensitivity will not be treated with tolerance but used as an excuse to undermine the educational programme. For this reason, educators will want to weigh these sensitivities carefully in order that they do not become stumbling blocks.

The Window

Most propitious, of course, is when educators understand the context in which they are going to work, or have crafted their programme in such a way that they have created a team that understands this context. Then they are provided with a rich source of idioms, analogies, traditions and anecdotes that can provide learners with new ways of understanding their own reality and the election or civic lessons are being conveyed.

To give just one example, it might be useful to consider those South African educators who had to find a way to help people understand the secret nature of the vote. In discussions with women from traditional societies, they found that pregnancy provided an allegorical insight. Generally, the gender of a baby is not known prior to birth. But they also discovered that this allegory could not be successfully used in the education programme because of a taboo of talking publicly about pregnancy. As a result, another image was chosen for discussion - that of the seed planted by the farmer. No one knows what gender the seed is until it grows. The illustrations that were used to reinforce the verbal discussions did, however, feature a pregnant women. She votes, but her condition is not discussed. It is noted, however, especially by women, and the concept of the secret vote is communicated - in secret.

Gender

The Afrobarometer, a large scale survey into attitudes towards democracy and governance in 15 African countries, analyses its data against a range of demographic factors – language, geography, age, socio-economic status, and so on. Gender is amongst these. Yet there is consistently very little statistical significance in this analysis – men and women in Africa hold similar values and perceptions, and behave or are inclined to behave in similar ways when confronted with particular situations. By far the greatest differences are found in geography, and therefore history and culture.

Educators trying to understand the context within which they are going to work are not then looking at women as a separate class of people. What they are trying to understand is how to reach women given the particular places to which they are restricted, and considerations of how best to assist women in exercizing their own individual and corporate rights and responsibilities in ways which are empowering and safe.

Considerations of Literacy and Schooling for Voter Education

Educators will want to assess carefully what can be learned about the literacy and schooling levels of their voters, in as much detail as possible, and will want to look for national or regional information that will help them to tailor their planning to reach voters that are functionally illiterate.

Literacy

Voter educators cannot presume literacy. Even industrialized and sophisticated societies with universal schooling generally have a percentage of people who are illiterate or semiliterate. In the southern hemisphere, illiteracy levels, which are often reported inaccurately, vary from 10 percent of the population to above 70 percent. These statistics obscure the fact that segments of the society may have different literacy levels.

In Peru "seventy-one percent of women are illiterate - nearly nine times as many as the proportion of men." [1] And this pattern is repeated through most developing countries. This discrimination against women provides the most obvious example of patterns of illiteracy that educators will want to discover. Within the borders of a country, there will be pockets where literacy levels are lower than others, for example in rural or remote areas. Within these pockets, there will also be variations where certain groups of people, such as women or the aged, have even higher levels of illiteracy.

Creating educational programmes that cater to the literate will obviously exclude the illiterate. Creating programmes that include the illiterate need not exclude the literate. And creating programmes in which there is an intentional emphasis on cooperative and oral learning will help ensure that both literate and illiterate people have an opportunity to learn.

Countries with high literacy levels have certain advantages. They can rely on the printed word more readily. But even in these countries, the traditionally disenfranchised - often the young, women, the poor - may not have very high levels of literacy. Educators will need to understand just how much people are willing to read and how much they can comprehend.

Schooling

Apart from literacy levels, educators may need to account for levels of schooling. There is obviously an overlap here. Many people learn to read at school. And those who do not learn to read often have been unable to attend or stay in school for very long.

Levels or years of schooling can also reveal to educators other things about likely levels of literacy. Schooling affects ways in which people are likely to understand other forms of education. It determines, for good or ill, how people value learning and which methods they are most likely to associate with educational programmes.

At the same time, voter education can be conducted independently, removed from the school room, and therefore free itself from the particular patterns of discipline, knowledge construction and dissemination, and competition for information and success associated with formal education.

Voter educators work at an advantage in societies that value education, particularly life-long learning. They benefit in cultures where schooling has encouraged democratic decision making and personal autonomy. They can also build on those schooling systems in which voter or civic education programmes have been incorporated into the formal or informal curriculum.

Understanding the patterns established by schooling systems in a country, therefore, will provide insight into the motivations and skills of the voting population. The recent upsurge in civic education at the school level, even in some long standing democracies, suggests that schooling in both traditional and even innovative or modern settings may not sufficiently prepare citizens for democracy in the absence of curricula specifically designed for this purpose. So educators of adults may not want to take it for granted that a literate and schooled society understands the complexities of modern democracies, even if they can assume that they will be able to read the pamphlets that explain how to register, and when and where to vote. Certainly, they may not assume that schooling inculcates the motivation and skills for civic participation (for more on this see Relationship Between General and Civic Education).

Notes:

[1] M. Kidron & R. Segal, The State of the World Atlas (Middlesex: Penguin, 1995).

Using Existing Resources for Education Programmes

Education programmes have to work within the constraints of available resources. This need not be a limitation if educators consider the question of resources carefully prior to setting objectives and establishing their educational strategy and programmes.

In addition to the obvious resources of people and money, educators need to consider what else the country has to offer in terms of infrastructure and social capital.

In many transitional societies, particularly due to war, civil strife, or economic stagnation, the quality of the infrastructure may pose one of the biggest challenges to the implementation of a voter education programme, especially with respect to distribution.

There may also be disagreement about who is responsible for covering the costs of certain activities or commodities. In some instances, for example, election law may require state-owned mass media to air official voter education messages. Unless the provision of free airtime is clearly and unambiguously stated, differing interpretations are likely to arise between the media outlet and the election authority about whose budget covers the costs of broadcasting.

Once an assessment has been made of available resources, it may be found that they are sufficient to conduct the necessary programmes.

However, some serious limitations may emerge. In this case, an election authority can act as the catalyst for resouce development. It need not remain passive in the face of disadvantage or scarcity, even though it may need to develop strategies, especially educational ones, that account for scarcity of existing resources. There may be some possibility of obtaining resources from the private sector (see The Private Sector) as well as International Support) or of leveraging resources by forming strategic parnterships with civil society (see Mechanisms for Partnerships in Voter Education  and the section on Existing Social Organization). Ultimately, the parameters of the voter education programme must reflect a honest accounting of resources. The voter education budget cannot jeopardize other preparations for elections, while overall election administration cannot overreach national resources that are needed for other purposes.

Country Infrastructure

In general, there never seems to be enough money for voter education. An in-depth assessment should be made of all the resources that are already available in a country's infrastructure. And that assessment usually includes the ways in which these resources can assist, or in their absence hinder, the programme. There are a number of specific areas voter educators will want to consider as they gather information about the country in which they are working:

The education system:  Understanding of the educational system will include basic information about the number and locations of primary, secondary and university-level institutions in order to identify possible voter education sites and target groups. An analysis of the national curriculum will identify whether there are existing educational materials and learner competencies that can serve as foundations for the voter education programme.

Mass media: A study of available mass media will provide both an analysis of available means of communications, their relative market share, characteristics of their audience, and the nature of their ownership, ie. public media outlets may be obligated under the law to provide free airtime for public service announcements such as voter education messages, while private media may or may not require payment. Power supply may also need to be taken into consideration as this will influence the choice and mix of media.

Delivery and distribution mechanisms: How will voter education messages be communicated, materials be delivered and distributed, trainers be deployed, and management and financial controls applied? Are there nationwide distribution networks? How reliable are these? What is the quality of the transportation infrastructure and what are the transportation options? Must distribution be handled on an ad hoc basis? Are there businesses or NGOs that could successfuly assume distribution responsibilities? Are there specific groups that could help with the distribution of targeted materials? 

Space:  Since voter education involves both dissemination of information through the media and gathering people to participate in group learning, voter educators may want to assess what public facilities are available for people to meet, which locations are best suited to the types of techniques being employed (such as role playing), and the conditions under which people are accustomed to meeting. Special arrangements may also need to be made to reserve this space or to notify local officials of its use for voter education purposes. Lodging may also need to be found for trainers or those participating in training programs.

Additional Advantages 

Knowledge of the country's or region's infrastructure may help identify a range of possible sites for voter education, introduce individuals and organizations to the programme, establish any regional and cultural differentiation which may need to be taken into account, and possibly identify certain marginal or high-risk areas where greater effort is required. It will be essential to document this assessment in a way that is useful to planners. As such, it should be brief, analytical, straight-forward, and easy to communicate. Much of the information may be readily available. If it is not, however, planners will have to weigh the costs of obtaining the information against the benefits of having it. In some cases, illustrative or intuitive overviews may be more useful for the purpose of planning voter education programmes.

How To Find Information

Certain government agencies may routinely need information about a country. They may be responsible for development, planning, or communications. Besides gathering such information, they may also be responsible for distributing it. Nationwide companies such as banks, mining companies, and large manufacturers are also likely to maintain such information. Some countries also publish yearbooks or other annual reports. And a number of NGOs, both domestic and international, and other organizations may also do the same.
Other Uses for Country Information.

An electoral authority can make use of country information in a variety of ways. Because of this, it may already have collected the information. If this is the case, the voter educators' task will be made easier. The interests of the various planners and administrators in the electoral authority may be different, however, than those of civil society organizations. As such, voter educators in the latter cannot abdicate responsibility for preparing a country briefing suitable for their own programme. Such a briefing can be distributed to agencies taking on sections of the voter education programme, to NGOs being encouraged to develop programmes of their own, and, with modifications, to international education agencies and observer groups.

Educational System

The educational system of a country is one of the most important resources available to voter educators. Whatever system exists in a country, voter educators will want to consider the resources available to them in terms of curriculum, training opportunities, staff and volunteer recruitment pools, as well as possible learning sites.

National Education System

An educational system includes both formal and informal educational institutions at the primary, secondary, and university level. Formal institutions are those conducting, either privately or on behalf of the state, a graded curriculum that results in a state-recognised certificate, diploma, or degree that might also have international currency. Informal institutions are those conducting shorter vocational, professional developmental and personal enrichment programmes that are not necessarily recognized by the state even though they may issue certificates of successful completion. Such certificates may be recognised by a professional or vocational association. The gap between formal and informal education is often one of scope.

Primary education consists of the basic educational grades normally offered to children in a compulsory system. Secondary education, often called high school, will generally include a more differentiated curriculum in preparation for graduation and perhaps college matriculation. Finally, higher education includes colleges and universities, as well as vocational and technical education. Often these institutions combine a series of formal courses with a range of less formal educational opportunities. In some educational systems, vocational and technical training may be offered at any one of these levels of education. In addition, there may be a variety of continuing education and training opportunities, particularly in countries that have substantial private or civil society sectors.

Some countries have an articulated educational system regulated through a national certification framework. In these countries, education and training throughout the myriad institutions considered above might enable people to move around the system and achieve certificates and integrated educational opportunities. In other countries, the systems are more rigid and the various institutions determine progress and outcomes independently.

Curriculum

There will need to be consideration of whether the educational system provides universal opportunities for people to learn about government, politics, voting behaviour, or general societal rules and standards. If this is the case, educators will have to assess whether this will replace any part of an informal voter education programme for adults or whether the formal curriculum has been designed to reduce or inhibit people's participation in democratic activity.

In many cases, primary and secondary education will have provided skills, attitudes and knowledge that provide a foundation for more detailed education in support of democracy or elections. In some cases, however, national education systems may have been forged to ensure support for a regime that is not democratic and where difference is not welcomed. In such cases, primary and secondary education may have left a heritage that severely compromises people's ability to engage in democratic behaviour: whether resolving differences, making decisions, voting, or participating in democratic institutions. In situations like this, voter and civic education programmes may have to be extensive.

Training Opportunities

Educators operating in election and civic spheres face considerable handicaps in obtaining training for themselves or finding trained colleagues. In fact, the majority of people working in this field enter it laterally with either a social science, political or a general educational background. Because adult education often includes work with disadvantaged people, and because overcoming disadvantage requires political action at various levels, such people may enter the field more readily.

The education system of a country will provide these informal training paths, and may also provide more formal training paths to a greater or lesser degree, depending not only on the extent that the country has a consolidated democracy, but also on the extent that the system interacts with social movements and evolving learner needs. It is interesting to note that some of the most vital training opportunities, and the most innovative programmes, are available in countries that have marginal democracies and intense social conflicts.

Those responsible for developing educators will want to discover training opportunities within the system and, where necessary, supplement these with short term informal training on the job.

Staff and Volunteer Recruitment Pools

Voter education programmes require large numbers of staff over a very short period of time. At the most, these personnel may receive orientation about the material available in conjunction with limited adult education skills. In large programmes, having a pool of trained teachers from whom to draw at short notice is obviously advantageous. There is a caveat, however. Formal education demands certain types of skills and behaviour. There is often a gap between the classroom and the voter education site that not all teachers are able to comprehend.

So educators will want to look carefully at the educational system in order to identify what levels of the system provide the most likely candidates for their programme. They will also note the dates of formal system terms of matriculation, including examination schedules, so that unrealistic expectations are not created about the extent to which teachers and instructors from formal systems can move into the voter education programme.

Learning Sites

Almost as important as obtaining staff and volunteer recruits will be obtaining cheap and accessible sites for conducting the voter education programme. Apart from those aspects of the programme that capitalize on bringing it to places where there are large groups of people, there will also be aspects of the programme that require seminar and conference room facilities (e.g. training of educators, workshops and briefings, preparation of materials, and running of focus groups). Educational institutions, whether private or state-funded, can often be made available at low cost. In some cases, they may also provide residential facilities for extended programmes.

Once again, as with other aspects of voter education programmes, there may need to be a balancing of the costs and convenience against public perceptions of some or all of these institutions.

Venue for Education Events

Voter educators will have to find and secure venues for a wide variety of activities. Doing this introduces a number of issues related to the costs and administration of their programmes.

Cascade training, press conferences, coalition meetings for a voter education consortium, voter education workshops, election briefings, planning sessions, community gatherings, televised debates or discussions, music festivals, drama rehearsals and productions, and mock elections are just some of the kinds of meetings or events likely to take place as part of a voter education programme. And educators will be competing for meeting space with every other participant in the election, including political parties, election administrators, NGOs, and the press.

It is often surprising how difficult it becomes to obtain public venues - to identify them, book them, obtain them at low cost, and keep them available when the programme is still in development but may require them at some point in the future. It is also likely to be a challenge to find a space appropriate to the needs of a particular activity. A conference, role-playing exercize, televised event, dramatic production, or planning session are likely to require different types of spaces. For some, theatre style seating may be fine. For others, educators may need to move furniture around to encourage participation. Or an interesting backdrop, open floor space, lots of table space for coallating materials, or multiple power outlets may be required.

Even those countries that have large tourist and convention industries may have venue problems outside tourist resorts in more isolated or less congenial parts of the country. There may even be competition in resort areas if elections are being conducted at times when conventions are in town. So early access to a reliable team of people who can be creative in their search for suitable venues is essential.

Amongst the less obvious venues, and certainly outside the normal experience of professional travel agents, are church and religious assemblies and retreat centres, camps, educational institutions, fairgrounds, and sports fields. Where venues are needed with overnight accommodation, they are even more difficult to find unless it is possible to arrange hospitality with local people.

Such alternative sites, however, are often difficult to reserve from a distance, and payment, where required, is often on a cash basis. So having local contacts and having to carry large amounts of money may conflict with the centralized and administratively convenient systems that national voter education organizations and election authorities often put in place.

Hotels and commercial conference centres become the preferred educational venues, rather than the public spaces that will ensure the events operate from a community base and with community support. Unless it is possible to persuade the owners of such venues to donate their use, voter education programme costs can balloon and discourage organizers from conducting public events.

Communication Mechanisms

Countries are not uniform in their abilities to communicate internally or between one another. During the twentieth century, advances in communication technology went through a number of waves, and while all previous advances remain in place, countries place different degrees of reliance on them and have different needs and limitations.

It is important that educators do understand the communications logistics in a particular country and do not attempt to establish programmes that rely on high technology systems, for instance that cannot be maintained or even implemented. At the same time, because technology tends to overlap, it results in some strange arrangements. Developing countries, for example, may leapfrog over developed countries, as some have in the use of mobile or cellular telephones or fax machines in recent years. And e-mail may be more reliable and available than traditional postal services.

In addition to communications messages, educators will also have to move people and materials. Unfortunately these do not yet travel down a telephone line, although even this is changing. [1] So educators must also understand the transportation infrastructure.

Moving People

What facilities exist to bring people into the country? In most places this will include international airports. In some, like St Helena, a harbour may be the only port of entry. And, more importantly, what facilities exist for moving people around inside the country? Are there local airlines? And do these connect with other forms of transport? If not airlines, is there a train system? Or are there domestic bus services connecting towns and cities? Within a town or region, is there public transport such as buses, subways or cable cars. Are taxis an option? And what condition are all these systems in? In some countries, there may be two separate transportation systems, private and state (including military forces). Educators will want to know which of these they will have to use or whether both are available. And what about remote locations? Will helicopters be required, for example, to take people into mountainous villages?

If primarily reliant on travelling by road, what is the conidition of the country's road system and how will this affect the amount of time needed to travel from one place to another? In some countries, traveling 240 kilometres (200 miles) may take two hours on a freeway. In others it may take all day. And how many miles of freeway are there? To what extent will travel need to be undertaken on narrow or poorly paved roads? Are certain roads impassable in bad weather, and what weather is to be expected during the operation? Are there appropriate motor vehicles available for purchase or hire? What condition are they in? How will the availability and price of fuel affect tranport?

Moving Goods

Moving goods can be as easy or as problematic as moving people. Virtually all of the considerations outlined above will also need to be taken into account with respect to bulk materials. In many cases, small amounts of material can travel with educators. But larger quantities of material will require freight services, and weight and space requirements will need to be taken into account. Freight services may be provided by sea, river, road, rail, or air. Each has its advantages and disadvantages; and costs will need to be weighed in terms of speed and reliability.

Moving Messages

Educators may consider the following possibilities for conveying messages that assist them in managing their programmes:

Oral transmission:

Very simply, messages can be passed on from person to person. In some circumstances, in fact, this may be essential. Where it is, the skills necessary to craft memorable messages and to recall these will have to be developed. Societies that have shifted away from such oral traditions may have to rely heavily on individuals linked to more traditional societies. Where literacy can be taken for granted, written messages can be conveyed by hand.

Postal services:

Postal services are not uniform. For educators, such services must be reliable. In many countries, but not all, there is a single government-owned or controlled postal service. The service usually includes receiving, transmission, and delivery of letters, bulk post and parcels. All of these may to some extent differ in reliability, service, and cost from country to country. They may also vary in the extent to which they remain part of a single monopoly service.

Educators will have to consider the extent to which recipients can obtain the post that is sent to them. Many rural communities do not have postal deliveries and must collect mail from depots. Often this can mean that a separate message must be sent alerting the recipient to the arrival of the postal item.

Where postal services have been degraded, theft, loss and delay can seriously affect critical programmes such as voter education.

In any case, the postal service normally remains one of the most cost-effective systems available.

Radio:

Radio networks can vary from the transmitter/receiver systems typically used by the police, military, rural communities and freight haulers to commercial broadcasting stations capable of conveying messages to large numbers of people with easily available commercial radios. Radio is capable of two-way communication across extensive distances. Because of the importance of this mode of communication in environments where other systems may not be available, it should be considered an essential part of an election management strategy that educators can use. And educators will want to consider ways they can use studio-based radio and television conferencing facilities that are available in some countries.

Telephone:

The telephone may be the most critical tool for communication in managing voter education programmes. It can also provide a potential educational medium itself. So an understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the existing telephone system is essential.

In particular, educators will want to know about the availability of "land lines", instruments such as handsets and PABX's, regional exchanges, and alternatives to land lines such as cellular systems or even satellite instruments. With respect to cellular systems, terrain may also be an important consideration that affects range.

In some countries, there is difficulty laying the necessary copper cabling. In others, fibre optic lines are being introduced. In some, manual exchanges and rotary dial telephones are all that exist. Other countries combine these with more advanced systems that may or may not be compatible with the older systems. Separate fax lines may exist, or fax machines may use existing lines.

Computer:

With the arrival of the Internet, and with it Internet service providers, electronic mail (e-mail), and other services have become available at least to those who have access to a computer, telephone and modem. The pervasiveness of the Internet, however, has obscured the fact that electronic mail and file transfer programmes can be used on much smaller and slower telephone and computer systems. E-mail is not synonymous with the World Wide Web. [2] It is entirely possible to set up an e-mail system using slow modems, pulse telephones and DOS-based computers. Obviously, those who have access to fast computers, modems and telephone lines will have access to the Web and to the facilities available there.

Computer-based technology:

As communication technology becomes more integrated, telephone and computer systems are providing managers with a range of additional facilities that enhance productivity and, where the basic infrastructure and maintenance skills exist, reduce costs. Amongst these are the ability to fax directly from the computer to one recipient or to broadcast to a group of people, the ability to use the Internet for chat sessions or telephone services, and the ability to use video conferencing for a small group of people in different locations.

On the telephone side, automated calling and voice mail systems capable of providing callers with touch tone options to obtain messages or fax documents are providing ways of making telephones more like the World Wide Web. At its most basic, the Web provides a way to deposit information and have the user collect it when required rather than have to have a real-time communication.

All these options are available to educators in societies with advanced communication systems. Each country will have to investigate just what is available to them when they begin to plan their programmes.

Technology and Tradition

While modern telecommunications and computer technologies may be increasing the range of communication options open to educators, cultural considerations about their use will still come into play. The population at large, or some groups in particular, may be suspicious of or uncomfortable with certain modern technologies. There may be some that they consider, for whatever reason, inappropriate for educational purposes or elections.

Notes:

[1] Countries with good telecommunications systems and reliable electricity can make use of video conferencing facilities to get people in touch with one another without having to move them around. Originally this required access to a television studio and broadcast system: but the Internet is increasingly establishing possibilities which are low cost and desktop bound. As far as documents go, e-mail and desktop publishing options make it possible for documents to be sent electronically and then reproduced rather than freighted.

[2] The World Wide Web with its high resolution graphics and home pages is most often though of when people speak of the Internet - but other smaller and older software packages are available for electronic communication across the net.

Importance of Mass Media in Education Programmes

Without good access to national and community media all public education programmes may be disadvantaged. It is possible to consider programmes that rely entirely on face-to-face education, but even these can be hindered if there is not a supplementary programme of advertising for events and news coverage to increase motivation as well as printed material to "leave behind." As such, assessment of available media options should be conducted.

Media Directories

In some countries, media registration may have resulted in a publicly-available directory. In others, NGOs and government media agencies may have collected such information. Or advertising agencies may keep books that give details on media outlets, including their market share and target audiences.

Early on, educators may want to develop a "brainstorm" list and subsequently their own directory, that analyzes available media outlets in terms appropriate to voter education programming. Criteria they may want to use include:

• Is the media owned or controlled by the government?
• If controlled by the government, is it obligated under election law to provide free space or airtime for voter education messages?
• If privately owned, is the management ammenable to running public service announcements, such as voter education messages either free of charge or at a discounted rate?
• What are the published advertizing rates of the outlet?
• Is the media national or community-based?
• Is the particular medium capable of preparing its own copy or producing its own spots?
• What is the policy and the protocol of the particular medium for taking spots or copy prepared by the education programme?
• In what format must spots or copy prepared by the education programme be presented to the media outlet in question?
• What is the outlet's market share, ie. what is the size of its viewing or listening audience or readership?
• What are the characteristics of its audience?
• How are the size or characteristics of the audience affected by date and time and by programming, ie.what are the most popular shows or are papers read more during the week or at week-ends?
• How many hours does the outlet broadcast per day?
• What is the print schedule, ie. twice daily, daily, several times per week, weekly, monthly, per quarter?
• Does the outlet's editorial board have a particular political orientation, or is the outlet associated in any way with a specific political party?
• In what languages does the outlet broadcast/print?
• Who are the contacts for the particular media and what is the street address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address.

An adequate database will need to be prepared for this information. Because of its importance, educators will also want to cultivate expertize within their own teams in this field and, in addition, develop appropriate contacts amongst outside practitioners.

Power Supply and Other Commodities

Particularly in transitional settings, educators will want to take note of any shortages or disruptions in the supply of valuable commodies such as electricity, gas, paper or ink. If power is in short supply, it may not make much sense to invest in pricey television commercials. Radio may still be an option, however, as radios can be operated on battery power. In such circumstances, print and direct contact may take on an increasingly important role. Educators will also need to take into consideration how power shortages or interruptions may affect production processes: if service providers do not have an independent and reliable power source very often this will extend the amount of time required for production. If paper or ink are difficult to obtain, then print activities may need to be de-emphasized. Even where these supplies exists, fuel shortages might hinder the ability to deliver and distribute print materials. Thus, educators must assess the availability of key commodities and the impact that these will have on the types and mix of media used.

Careful Planning and Assessment

Countries with vibrant media infrastructures are essential to the development of democracy. To the extent that voter education can enhance this by careful selection and promotion of media, it will have long-term impact for future programmes.

Political Parties in Voter Education

Political parties remain an essential component of a democratic political system in a 21st century state.

There has been an unfortunate tendency to ignore the contribution that political parties can make to voter education and should make to a more general civic education. Voter apathy is directly related to the efficacy of political parties in developing and communicating policy positions which invigorate citizen interest in public affairs and government, and which, because of their responsiveness to individual and societal needs, place choices before people which they consider sufficiently compelling to get out and vote.

This tendency has been driven by a belief that those with a particular party interest are not to be trusted to inform voters of their rights or to assist them in making choices, and are generally going to attempt to seduce and dupe them by providing one-sided information or even misinformation. Strange that one can trust such parties to govern but not to have the public interest in mind at other times.

However, even if individual parties do behave in this way, the free flow of information and the standards under which modern elections can and should be conducted allow competing messages and information to reach voters. There are thus some systems in which it is assumed that the combined effort of campaigning parties and an efficient decentralized election management body provide sufficient voter information and education for any particular election.

Hence the apparent paucity of voter education in democracies of long standing, and the emphasis on voter education only at transitional moments. This is obviously an increasingly short sighted approach, and overlooks the numerous institutions in such long-standing democracies that conduct educational programmes at election times without referring to them as voter education.

Educators responsible for voter or civic education programmes should therefore consider carefully how best to involve political parties in contributing to their programmes, whether through a direct provision of the jointly determined curriculum, through encouraging their supporters to participate in programmes, through establishing and conducting their own educational programmes as is done by many party foundations  or merely by taking seriously, between and at elections, the need to communicate ably and vigorously with the public about their own programmes and about the constitutional context that both binds them to particular forms of organization and behaviour and gives them the freedom to exist and compete.

In countries where political parties are very poor, educators may even consider non-partisan ways in which these campaigns can be strengthened. Amongst possible options are:

• Joint candidate and party training in campaign management and conduct
• Independent publishing and distribution of collections of party manifestos
• Lobbying for free access to state-run media
• Providing parties with nonpartisan voter information pamphlets to which they can add limited information of their own, reducing their own printing costs
• Holding public education events at which candidates and parties can introduce themselves to the public

An assessment of the role that could be played by political parties' educators will want to consider the extent to which the parties presently represented in various legislatures represent the citizens at large, and whether, through anomalies in the electoral system or as a result of socio-economic cleavages and exclusions, there are formally constituted parties, whether registered or not, or informal political groupings and alliances, which should also be drawn into their educational venture. Interacting with such parties will depend on the institutional place of the educator. If part of a statutory body they may not be allowed to interact with any but registered parties: but if this is the case, they should consider other ways to make sure that the educational programme is not systematically excluding people who because of their political allegiances may not be accessible even by some more non-partisan but official educational programmes.

Time and Money

It is important during the assessment of the context to ensure that those tasked with planning for the voter education programme have full knowledge of the financial and time constraints. These are not always obvious or fully enunciated. There may also be significant changes to the environment in which the voter education programme is being conducted or the audience to which is it being directed. These changes are likely to affect the time and money needed for the current undertaking relative to past allocations. So educators will want to enquire into the details as early as possible. Seasoned educators will advise you that there is never enough time and always too little money.

Saving Time and Money

Education programmes will have to consider ways to reduce costs and save time. Mainly, this is done by increasing voluntary support and the number of organisations contributing to the undertaking. As noted elsewhere, forming strategic partnerships between election authorities, civil society, and the private sector helps to leverage costs, while financial support can be sought from international organizations. Tasks can also be simplified through appropriate planning and regulatory mechanisms. This can also be done by doubling up on resources and staff. One training event or manual can fill more than one need or reach more than one audience.

Cutting to Suit the Cloth

Unfortunately, election-related tasks cannot be slowed down or given a new deadline because an educator feels that the time available is not sufficient. Rather, the objectives of the programme have to be streamlined and the consequences of this explained to the client, whether a sponsor, an election authority, a government department, or a group of learners. Their expectations will also have to be managaged throughout the course of the project. This is, in fact, one of the most difficult areas for non-educators to grasp - that learning is time-related. Materials development, production, and distribution as well as orientation and training of educators, and the actual education time itself are all time-intensive and often difficult tasks to perform within established deadlines. Those who conduct programmes which are cyclical in nature will obviously find it easier to meet deadlines than those constantly preparing from scratch each time a campaign or election is held.

Existing Social Organisations

The concept "social capital" provides a shorthand way of thinking about the human resources that may be available to a voter education programme. Unfortunately, it is a term that has become a buzzword in political circles so it requires some further discussion. Once understood, it can be used to provide additional information about a country.

This section looks at what constitutes social capital and how social capital could be used in voter education programmes in order to improve democratic practices within countries and communities. It will also briefly examine the shortcomings of social capital as a tool with which to approach a community in order to bring about higher levels of democracy.

Its advent into modern day politics comes at a time when all aspects of our existence are often judged in economic terms. Are we being "productive" as employees? Is the government "delivering"? Are we making enough "input" into social practices?

Democracies all over the world have been evaluating themselves in the 1990's. Despite optimism early in the decade, there is some scepticism about the longevity of newly emerging democracies.

The big question in politics these days revolves around how we can strengthen or consolidate democracy. How can the success of democracy in one area be transferred to an area of the world where it has not been successful, or even in existence, for decades?

One of the factors raised in this quest is the role of civil society in democratic countries. As Robert Putnam emphasises in most of his writings and especially in Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, the levels of interaction between civil society and government determine the levels of democracy within a country. [1] This implies that the higher the levels of interaction, the stronger the democracy will be and vice versa. Civic Traditions traced twenty years of political and associational life in Italy, comparing the results of the northern regions to those in the south. Putnam concluded that the southern regions were less democratic than those in the north because of the existence of patron-client relationships with the mafia. The north supported more civic-minded organizations and groupings.

Definition of Social Capital

The concept of social capital was initiated by James Coleman and further developed by Pierre Bourdieu. Coleman used the term to describe a resource of individuals that emerges from their "social ties", and Bourdieu used it to refer to the advantages and opportunities accruing to people through membership in certain "communities". [2]

The definition of social capital is quite simple. It is the currency that enables a society to operate more effectively. This includes intangible factors such as values, norms, attitudes, trust, networks, and the like. Putnam says social capital is comprised of those factors found within a community that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. [3] This means that if one works in a community that has trust, values, networks and the like, the outcome will be more effective than work done within a community without those variables. This has great impact on non-governmental organisations' interactions with communities with regard to voter education.

Francis Fukuyama, the author of The End of History and The Last Man, Trust, the Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, and a large number of articles, believes "the vitality of [social capital] is essential to the functioning of both the market and democracy." [4] This means that both government and communities should make sure that high levels of existing trust, norms, and values should be maintained and nurtured within that society in order for their work to be easier and more successful.

Voter education is designed in order to get a message about voting and elections out to the majority of eligible voters prior to election day. It is an expensive endeavour. Consequently, ways that would minimise costs are sought by those who are in the business of conducting voter education programmes. If social capital facilitates community cooperation then surely those factors should be used to make voter education easier and more effective in its outreach.

Norms and Values

Norms and values within a community refer to the attitudes among citizens that make their interactions easier with each other. If all citizens in a community, for example, believe that each person should be treated with respect and valued as a participant, the community will involve everyone in discussions about issues that affect all citizens. These attitudes will be evident in the norms of that society. People will respect each other's property, views, and rights. We could also say that these citizens will know and understand that they have to pay their taxes, pay for services, and participate in democratic discussions.

When an organization conducts voter education programmes within that society, their work will be that much easier because of those existing norms and values. The educators will not have to go into great detail about allowing for differences, creating a safe space for discussion, and calling for people to do their civic duty by voting. The community already has those values and norms.

This community's social capital can be used to facilitate the transfer of information about voting. Educators should use the existing norms and values within that community to make learning easier. Those norms and values should be reinforced by examples of the duties of citizens in the voting process.

Norms also refer to common practices within communities and organizations. People may have certain practices which are culturally determined. In traditional African communities, for example, the chief is the most powerful person. If the chief has not been consulted, the community may not be open to that programme, either physically or psychologically. The programme staff may be barred from entering the area, citizens may feel that the programme staff do not respect their culture and practices and therefore not listen to the information being provided. It is important for educators to find out about the practices of a community, to respect those practices, and to conform to them while working in that area.

Some areas may also have informal leaders. Those people should be consulted in order to facilitate work within that community. Sometimes religious leaders have that status, as do teachers, or healthcare providers. It is important for educators to know who those people are and to respect those norms and values within each community.

Networks

A second factor in social capital is the system of networks. Every society has networks. These could be around work, church, sport, and any club or group found in that society. Networks could be used to make voter education programmes more cost-effective and reach a larger number of people with a minimum amount of input from the educators. Networks involve a large number of people who identify with a common cause, goal or interest. The network also allows for people to spread their expertize within a sector and to transfer skills.

Networks may be widespread and reach a large number of people from different sectors of the community and with different interests. Voter educators could use those networks to disseminate their information. A single point of entry into the society is all that is needed. A soccer club may have a meeting once a week. Voter educators might meet with that group of people once. Information from that meeting may then be relayed socially by those members through the networks to which they belong. One member may be part of a reading group while another may be part of a volunteer group. This information gets spread through the community via such networks.

Voter educators should use these networks strategically and supply enough information (printed and verbal) at the point that would make the most impact on the community. Information leaflets should be given out at that entry point in sufficient quantities for people to take home. Information should also be placed at venues like shopping centres, churches, schools and gyms to support the verbal relay. In rural communities where the tradition of storytelling still exists and illiteracy is high, networks may be used very effectively. Voter educators who may not be able to stay in an area for an extended period of time, therefore, should inform those people who have the most contact with the majority of the community, such as teachers, religious leaders, health workers, and even shop owners.

Trust

Trust is a major factor in the success of democracy. Francis Fukuyama believes people who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced, sometimes by coercive means. [5] Trust can only be obtained through longstanding practices. People trust one another only if they have had a relationship over a period of time. Trust needs to be established through experience and repetition. If you tell someone a secret and that person keeps the secret, for example, more trust will be forged between them. And the next time, a higher level of trust may be placed in that person.

The flow of information will be more effective in societies where there is a high level of trust. People will trust the teller or educator not to mislead them and, therefore, will be more likely to believe the information. Trust is inherent in networks and, therefore, both factors become complementary. Within a network it is in the group's interest to keep trust levels high. Voter educators can harness those high levels of trust for their programme. Educators should contact and work with the people who are most likely to be trusted by the majority of the community. The community trusts these people and would listen to them without doubt or mistrust.

Voter educators should make use of the social capital that is found in communities. It could assist them with the important but difficult task of informing people about elections.

Even though social capital does have many positive aspects, there are negative issues that may arise.

Problems

Norms and values assume that people know what they are and follow them. If a new person comes into a community, however, these norms and values have to be learned and assimilated before that person is accepted. This means that, at any given time, there may be people in the community who may be excluded due to their lack or limited knowledge of accepted norms. Sometimes those norms are not obvious, and educators may accidentally ignore or neglect a norm and upset the community. While cultural values can be very specific, they can also be very complicated.

Networks also may imply exclusion. If one belongs to a group with a network, it means that there are other people outside that group who don't belong to the network. These structures also tend to assist only the people who belong to that network. Not being a member, therefore, could put other sectors of the community at a disadvantage. Tightly knit communities are more difficult to penetrate, obviously, than those that are open to outside influences. Educators should examine a community carefully to learn which are the most constructive and effective networks. Those may be the ones with the most contact with the people.

Trust also may be difficult to establish for outsiders, such as an educator from an organization like a statutory body that is not represented within the community. In this case, training programmes should be developed for trainers in the community. These local trainers should be people who are accepted and trusted by the community and, therefore, facilitate communicating information to that group of people.

Social capital is a concept with great potential to enable educators to think through effective ways to communicate. Those involved in civic education will also want to consider ways in which they can exploit the benefits of social capital.

Assessing social networks

Every country has social capital, just as it has other resources. The purpose of conducting an assessment or survey of social networks is to render the invisible visible. This allows those planning and implementing voter education programmes to gain access to the cultural associations that may enhance democracy and to better plan ways of coping with those forces that may hinder it.

While there are a number of ways to conduct such an assessment, the simplest may be to place one or more teams into the field in order to conduct interviews and enter information into a simple contact database or index card system. These teams will begin by selecting an obvious range of nodal organizations in a geographic area and requesting information from them. A second set of interviews will be conducted with individuals and organizations referred to in the first set of contacts.

Once a full set of contacts has been collected - inclusive to the extent possible within the time and financial constraints set by the educational programmers - teams from the field may find it helpful to develop a graphical representation of the social networks in debriefing sessions. This is done by using large sheets of paper, writing down an initial contact and then using a logical connector to place other contacts on the network or map. This may entail simple references such as "Referred to by [someone]" or "Referred to [someone]" or "Works closely with [someone]", or whatever may be appropriate. Such a network can assist educators in understanding the "social fabric" of a geographic region.

This contact information will then be supplemented by survey data regarding political and social culture and norms. Those who have conducted the assessment may then want to prepare a narrative report for those tasked with planning the voter eduction programme, that includes qualitative information including anecdotes, typical stories, photographs of those interviewed and descriptions that give a good sense of place. Such reports provide a deeper view of the area into which a programme is being inserted and can be of help even to those who reside in the area concerned.

Places to Survey

An assessment of social networks can start just about anywhere, provided that the right questions are asked of those being interviewed. There are certain individuals and organizations, however, that are more likely to be connected to the social networks than others. Amongst these will be religious or cultural organizations, clubs with large and significant memberships, and associations of residents, workers, businessmen and other professionals. It will be important to ensure that the field teams penetrate behind the most obvious organizations to those that even local people may take for granted.

Nodal organizations are those which, in addition to their own work or in order to conduct their own work, hold together one or more networks by providing coordinating, secretarial, and home services for these networks. Such organizations may be mentioned often by interviewees. Nodal organizations should not, however, be assumed to be spokespersons for the community or to replace the networks that they support.

Questions to Ask

Field teams will want to get basic contact information from each person they interview. This information should include:

• an accurate rendition of the name, acronym and all common naming conventions of the organization that the person represents. In many societies, organizations will be referred to by a variety of appellations, and field workers may end up believing that different organizations are being discussed.
• all contact information including the actual postal addresses as well as phone numbers and fax coordinates and e-mail addresses where applicable. In the case of informal organizations, additional information may be required such as the name of the location where a telephone message can be left or a postal address where a second letter is required in order to ask the recipient to pass on the primary letter, and so on.
• details (to the extent known) of the key individuals and organizations with whom the interviewee works or associates on a regular basis. This information should include the names of organizations in which the individual and his or her organization is a member.

Redundancy

It is possible that the assessment of social networks will be conducted at the same time as other aspects of the programme. These other endeavours may include focus group research, pilot studies, and registration drives. Because of the importance of understanding the social fabric in advance of programmatic interventions, however, it may be wise to consider this as an initial step prior to additional programme assessment activities.

Notes:

[1] Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

[2] A. Portes and Landolt, "Downside of Social Capital" in The American Prospect, no. 26 (May/June 1996), 18 -21.

[3] Robert D. Putnam, "The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life" in The American Prospect, no. 13 (Spring 1993).

[4] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992) or Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995).

[5] Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995).

Statutory Authorities

While the national election authority may have a legal mandate to undertake voter education programmes, they also represent one of the most obvious resources available to unofficial voter education initiatives. There may also be opportunities to pursue joint voter education activities through the formation of a strategic partnership between the election authority and civil society, among others. The role of election officials is described in some detail in Election Officials in Voter Education. Apart from those election authority officials designated for the task, however, there are likely other government agencies that are often overlooked, for example ministries of information and education, bodies responsible for the registration of voters, special executive or legislative committees responsible for civic education, or government support services, to name a few.

Other branches of the state should be considered as additional resources. They may provide skilled educators and communicators, large pools of volunteers or at least seconded workers, and perhaps access to information and experience that may be essential during the planning and implementation of the voter education programme.

Government directories may provide the background information necessary for the assessment, but obtaining access to the staff and resources of government departments requires personal contact and support from cabinet ministers or ministers of state and, more importantly, from senior state officials or civil servants.

Election planners will want to work with election authorities in ensuring that government departments and their senior staff are kept informed of and feel able to contribute to the programme from the outset. This is especially important if, for some reason, the civil servants previously responsible for elections, voter education, or broader civic education programmes have been excluded in the present programme or dispersed to other departments between one election and the next.

It may be that there is some hesitation about making use of civil servants in transitional situations where there has been too close an association of the civil service with one regime. If this is the case, more care will have to be taken in evaluating the advice given and the staff recruited. Nevertheless, state experience is not easily gained, and in many cases it is not written down in a form that can be used by the inexperienced.

As with all programme assessments, there will have to be a balancing of the usefulness of the resource in relation to the purpose of the programme, as well as with the impact that the use of the resource will make on cost, efficiency, and public legitimacy.

The Private Sector

The primary aim of business is to make profit. In order to make profit, however, commercial interests have to concern themselves with the stability and prosperity of markets and their reputation in the eyes of present and future consumers. Those with a long term outlook will also be concerned with the cultivation of educated and responsible citizens.

Elections are also substantial commercial ventures, in their own way, so there are redoubled reasons for businesses to become a rich resource for educators. Private businesses can be considered as a source of financial donations for the voter education programme. At the same time, they should also be viewed as partners in the venture and may be approached for support in the areas of secondary and senior staff, facilities, personnel, materials and so on. In some cases, larger business enterprises may even be encouraged to run education programmes of their own.

The private sector may be a rich and diverse resource. Economic activity may include street vendors, multinational representatives, and peasant farmers selling their surplus. At the start of the twentyfirst century, the variety of economic activity is expanding even though each individual company would no doubt prefer (as would each politician) to be the only player in the field.

Because of this, it is not possible to consider the private sector as a monolith. Any assessment of the sector as a resource will have to consider the texture of the country rather than take a predetermined view of what can be achieved. The assessment will also have to take into consideration the extent to which the private sector has partisan interests, and if and how these can be overcome to assist a nonpartisan programme. In a similar vein, the assessment will have to consider the public image of the business community and the extent to which that might affect the credibility and legitimacy of the programme.

Educators will also want to look beyond the private sector as there may be some non-profit organizations in civil society with commercial, business, and professional interests. For more on these types of associations, see Organised Civil Society as Stakeholders in the Voter Education Mandate.

Ultimately, it is difficult to imagine any country in which it is possible to operate a national education campaign without some support from the private sector, even if it is only financial support.

International Support

There is an increasing number of international agencies and individual consultants ready, willing and able to provide election administration assistance and, in particular, civic and voter education. Obtaining international assistance requires a knowledge of these resources as well as the specific tasks for which international support is required.

International Government Organizations

Electoral support has become a core activity of the United Nations (UN) family, which has established a number of specialist units capable of responding to a wide range of necessary activities – from election observation and administration to civic and voter education. With the publication of the seminal UNDP Human Development Index “Human Development Report: Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World”, the UN recognized a growing trend by its members to support democracy and governance activities in parallel or as foundations to development. With the establishment of the Democracy Support Fund in 2006, a global consensus emerged in which countries act in solidarity with one another to promote democracy.

These global initiatives have been stimulated by or tracked by regional and sub-regional initiatives. The African Union and the Organisation of African States both established mechanisms by which countries could be held accountable for deepening democracy.

All of these initiatives have encouraged a partnership for electoral support and civic education.

Obtaining support

Despite the increasingly joined up architecture of institutions at a global level, international governmental organisations (IGOs) do still operate within different spheres of influence and with different frames of reference. Further information can be obtained about each of these IGOs from local or regional offices or from their web sites.

Regional bodies such as the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation of American States (OAS), and the African Union, and international organisations, such as the Commonwealth and the United Nations, all provide different levels of election support to their members and, on occasion, to donor countries and those requesting assistance. The United Nations family provides an online note at http://portal/undp/org/server/nis/4649027220113235. A number of individual countries also provide assistance through government development agencies, for example the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and their embassies abroad. On occasion, individual countries may be asked by IGOs to act on their behalf. In general, support from governments will have to be sought by the government or someone representing an inclusive community of interests within a country.

International Nongovernmental Organizations

Apart from governments there are a number of NGOs or consortia of NGOs that provide assistance in support of democracy. These include the partners in the Administration and Cost of Elections (ACE) Project. Many of these in addition to providing small grants, maintain websites providing information on donor organizations, technical assistance provided (organized by assistance area, such as voter education), and regional information resources.

Unlike government funding agencies, international nongovernmental organizations may opt to fund only those projects being undertaken by fellow nongovernment organizations, thereby supporting the development of the nongovernmental sector as a whole. For this reason, it will be important for those seeking grants to adequately understand the orientation, goals, and priorities of the organization from which funding is being sought.

Preparing for Support

Resources can be obtained only if the organization has specifically identified the type of support that may be required and matched this to a donor with complementary programmatic goals and funding priorities. Support might take the form of technical assistance, for example advice in developing, implementing, or evaluating a voter education programme, via training of trainers (TOT), through the provision or necessary equipment, in the form of a grant, or by covering the costs of a specific activity such as the printing or delivery of materials. Once a proposal has been prepared, any of the ACE partners will be willing to refer people to potential areas of support.

South-South Cooperation

The global enterprise of civic education and voter education has reached a stage where, as a result of waves of effort by international foundations, it is difficult to separate the collaboration of organizations in the traditional South from that of those in the North.

Indeed much of the experimentation and innovation in civic education and voter education is being done in the South by domestic institutions. In parts of the world, this work is being financed by national budgets and local solidarity funds, but much of it is still being financed by international development aid.

There is, however, an increasing number of regional democracy and election funds, some in private hands and some established by regional inter-government organisations. But apart from attempts to create indigenous sources of funds, the flow of intellectual capacity through election observation missions, sharing of best practice, and the mobility of academics, NGO staff, civil servants and election administrators has meant that the international partnership for civic education and electoral support is not a simple flow of resources from the North to the South.

Educational Needs

This section provides ways in which the information necessary to discover educational needs can be collected. These include:

• understanding target groups
• conducting surveys
• finding existing information
• learning from interlocutors and intermediaries

Citizens and voters have many needs that, in an election, translate into themes, issues, concepts, concerns or problems, and that contestants in the election will respond to through their campaign materials. Educators, on the other hand, are interested in only those needs that have the possibility of being met through learning or other educational interventions.

There may well be some needs that can only be satisfied by changes in power relations or the electoral environment. An example of this would be the voters' need for safety at the polling station. Educators may be able to explain the arrangements being made, but only the arrangements themselves will meet the need.

In the above example, educators from a human rights organisation may indeed choose to conduct programmes that go beyond explanation of the arrangements being made to steps that voters can take to better ensure their own safey. Establishing a set of needs, however, will not reduce the strategic and ideological choices that educators must make in determining appropriate programme goals or outcomes.

Nevertheless, it is essential to move beyond a simple description of voter background or an understanding of the political issues of the day, and toward the identification and understanding of a full list of needs to be met by one or more voter education programme. This can be done through the establishment of target groups or learner constituencies. And, while educators will want to prepare programmes that are inclusive, there will be certain cases when the very constituency for whom the programme is prepared have needs that require particular approaches and messages. Many of the programme elements that are described in this topic area have general relevance, but for certain groups there are additional considerations.

A separate section of the topic area (see Educational Objectives) reviews the manner in which such a list of needs can be transmuted into an appropriate set of learning or educational objectives.

Target Groups, Audiences, and Constituencies

Different people have different educational needs. While there may be some needs that are general to all potential voters, it is likely that even these will be expressed differently by different individuals or groups.

Who Will Benefit from the Educational Programme?

Assessment of need has to consider the recipients or beneficiaries of the educational endeavour. There are various words that can be used to describe these recipients. Each of the words has its advantages and disadvantages, and educators working together can be unnecessarily confused by the differing terminology.

Communicators will often talk of "the public", or "publics", meaning a subset of people with particularly common characteristics. Advertizers may speak of an "audience", such as a "youth audience". Those conducting campaigns or with a particular public information message may consider "target groups" or "target audiences", such as rural women. And activists or some educators may talk of "constituencies" with whom they work.

Each of these words is being used to indicate the importance of defining carefully, and segmenting in as real a way as possible, the particular set of individuals with whom the educator plans to work. Even if the voter education mandate is universal and educators responsible for informing the general electorate (see High Impact Groups), a programme will have to consider different methods and messages for different segments of the population. Some groups may be marginalized, while others have special needs with respect to the voting process (see Marginalized Voters and Groups with Special Needs). Beyond the information needs of each target group, it will also be the case that some groups learn differently than others.

Constraints on Segmentation

There are constraints on the choices available to educators. Some of these constraints are linked to information and resources. It is not always possible to know or predict everything about individuals or groups of individuals, and aggregating people always leads to simplification.

Other constraints are introduced by political, constitutional, and legislative considerations. The voter educator may be obliged by law or by political imperative to give attention to particular audiences or constituencies. Yet there may be financial and logistical considerations. The resources needed to reach a small nomadic or exiled group, for example, may not be available no matter how important that group may consider itself, or be considered by others. Or the voter education programme may have to be generalised - through language choice, medium, or methodology - which might exclude some particular segment of society.

Voter educators have also have certain "values" that need to be made explicit in evaluating which constituencies will be targeted and to what extent. Educators may feel that, all things being equal, poor people require more attention than the affluent, even though both may require education. Or they may believe women's participation is of more importance than that of men.

In many of these choices, it may be possible to establish an educational programme that does not discriminate but rather builds on the strengths of particular educators to work in particular constituencies. There are also "high impact groups" that educators will want to reach out to because of the ripple effects that can be achieved by concentrating on such groups. Educators who are committed to the widening and deepening of democracy may also opt to focus their attention on the "marginalized" groups, noted above, for whom specialized (and often more costly) programmes have to be developed.

The Individual Voter

These terms - target, audience, constituency - are all inclusive terms. They aggregate individuals into manageable categories. Yet educators typically prefer not to aggregate people but rather to consider them as students, pupils, participants, or learners. Voter educators will be developing plans and curricula. And it is they who will be contemplating their task in terms of campaigns, public information and lessons. There will be times when they will be forced to use the inclusive terminology. But good educators will always be recalling the individual learner at the base of the planning.

The General Electorate

Educators, particularly those working on official voter education programmes, either through the election authority or some other statutory body, will have some responsibility to provide voter information to the general electorate. Eligible voters will be defined in the constitution and the election law. Typically, citizenship, age, and competency requirements will be established. Some prisoners may retain their voting rights, while others may not. And, in some elections, for example municipal elections or the election of representatives according to districts, residency requirements may also come into play.

The election authority may have some obligation, then, to inform all eligible voters about the date and type of elections, hours of voting, the location of relevant polling sites, registration requirements and locations, the type of identification required to establish one's qualification to vote, the proper manner in which to indicate one's choice on the ballot, and so on.

These general voter information messages may then be supplemented, either by the election authority's own programmes or those of civil soceity groups, by targeted information and education messages aimed at special cases, either marginalized groups or those with special needs.

High Impact Groups

Educators can reduce the effort required to conduct a programme by identifying groups of people who will themselves have an impact on others without a major investment of attention by the education programme. There is a strategic planning model that says all activities can be measured on two scales - effort and impact. If voter educators use this scale they will find they can define four types of work:

• programmes that take a lot of effort and have a high impact
• programmes that take a lot of effort and have a low impact
• programmes that require less effort for a high impact
• programmes that take little effort but also have little impact

"Effort" can be defined as the use of resources (people, money, equipment) and programme complexity. "Impact" can be defined as the achievement of the stated objectives where these have resulted in changes in attitude, behaviour, skill, or knowledge of the target audience. So, wise educators will obviously want to run programmes that reduce effort while increasing impact.

There has to be some humility in selecting high impact groups. Selection of such groups is an art rather than a science. And it is also possible for educators to convince themselves that they have chosen such groups when actually the target has been chosen primarily because of the reduction in effort rather than because the educator knows that there will be an increase in impact.

What Are Educators Seeking?

As a general rule, educators will be looking for people (or groups of people) who have ready access to others and already enjoy trust and respect within that constituency. When they speak, people take what they say seriously. Just as important, they have groups of people who want to listen to them.

Educators may also look for people who have the power to replicate messages to particular constituencies. By profession, they may be teachers, trainers, or communicators. Or they may be able to mobilize such people through their positions in a company or institution.

The advantages of spending time identifying such groups of people and then giving them special attention is obvious. But surprisingly, educators continue to prepare generalized programmes using "scatter shot" approaches despite the fact that this may be more expensive, although apparently cheaper per voter reached. Costs seldom take into account the free multiplier effects that can be achieved through specialized programmes for high impact groups.

Marginalized Voters and Groups with Special Needs

In every election, and indeed in every possible voter education programme, there are special groups who require particular attention. There are certain groups that have emerged with some frequency. These groups include:

• election staff
• voters abroad
• absentee voters
• refugees and internally displaced persons
• nomads and migrants
• voters in remote areas
• minorities
• disabled people
• home and hospital bound voters
• traditional prisoners
• political prisoners
• security forces
• women
• young and first time voters

Their listing here should not blind educators to the possibility that there might be other groups that require special attention. These groups will vary from country to country. As societies become more atomised by progress, and more conscious of the special needs and human rights of groups as opposed to individuals, it is likely that more groups will be identified.

In transitional circumstances, the interests of certain groups will be identified more closely, and these groups will merit special attention during elections. The rule of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, for example, resulted in large numbers of "emigre" Cambodians who had to be accommodated in elections supervised by the United Nations. In the case of Bosnia, the Dayton Accords required that refugees and internally displace persons by accomodated in elections organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The founding democratic elections in South Africa were deemed to be fully inclusive, and arrangements had to be made for a diaspora of South Africans throughout the world. In long-standing democracies, declining voter turn out by young people merits special educational and motivational programmes aimed at youth.

Educators will not want to take for granted the traditional and visible ways in which societies function if they wish to extend democratic rights to all citizens. Apart from the hegemonies established by particular groups of citizens through language, culture, and the manipulation of power, adequate education usually requires special nuances and a sophisticated approach to individuals. The more of these nuances that are discovered and made visible the better.

Election Staff

Poll worker and election commission staffs can be a real asset to any voter education programme. This groups has the advantage of being clearly identifiable, willing to attend training events, available prior to and, if records are kept, subsequent to an election, and highly motivated, even if in some cases the motivation may be pecuniary. By providing poll worker and election official training that incorporates a component dealing with voter education, poll workers and election commissioners can become a potential informal education pool (see Role of Election Officials). At the same time, poll workers and election officials in many developing and transitional societies may be overburdened and underappreciated. As such, educators may need to guard against unrealistic expectations.

Because of the duties that poll workers and election officials perform, however, some attention also has to be given to special information about when and how they can vote that may be different from that given to the general electorate. While a small task, it should not be overlooked as it will impact on the confidence with which they speak about the election. It will also reduce their own insecurities which can be magnified as pressures on them increase.

Voters Abroad

The number of voters who will be out of the country on election day will vary depending on the particular country and election. Also, there is likely to be legislation that defines who is eligible to vote abroad, under what circustances, and how and where they can cast ballots. This group may include those who are outside of the country as a result of diplomatic service, vacation or business. It may may also include those who temporarily live abroad but who retain a citizenship and permanent residency in their home country. It may even include those who have never lived in the home country but have citizenship by some historic right. In the majority of these cases, those who want to vote will need to communicate their intention to the national election authority or some other statutory body. Plans can be made to deliver information or educational materiasl to them. This information will clearly need to be distinct from that provided to resident voters, as polling site locations, hours of voting, and methods of casting ballots may all be necessary. Voting early or by mail may also be an option.

Absentee and Early Voting

For persons who will be in the country proximate to the election, but not on election day, other arrangements may be available. This often affects persons who may be on the road or abroad due to business or vacation. For some elections, such as presidential elections, it may include persons who will not be in the area where they are registered to vote on election day.

Two of the most common options for dealing with such groups are absentee voting and early voting. Absentee voting occurs on the basis of a request to the appropriate election authority. Ballots are subsequently sent to the voter by mail, marked, and then returned by mail. In the case of early voting, voters may go to their polling site or a higher level election office to cast their ballot(s). A few countries have also allowed voters who will not be in their area on election day for presidential elections to obtain a certificate that would allow them to vote in another area. Clearly, all of these special voting services have their own unique procedures and requirements that will need to be communicated to voters in question.

Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

By far the largest and most difficult groups of voters out of the country or their voting precinct or district are likely to be refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Refugees and IDPs are often displaced by war, civil strive, or environmental turmoil. This raises such problems as loss of identity and voter registration documents and records, the inability to vote where registered, and access to alternative polling stations. For legislative and local elections, the application of general rather than universal suffrage may also present problems of representation. The countries of former Yugoslavia and the Caucuses provide just a few examples where special voting arrangements needed to be made and where targeted voter education programmes were required for refugees in neighboring countries and for IDPs.

Where displacement has also resulted in the crossing of national borders, the problems increase exponentially. Where elections are the result of political settlements, there may be a programme for the repatriation of refugees prior to the elections, as there was in Mocambique. If repatriation can take place in advance of the election date, it may be possible to prepare voter education programmes in country. But those who have been refugees for some time, or as the result of substantial upheaval and war, may still require special attention. Programme information is contained in Communicating with Exiles, Refugees, and Internally Displaced Persons.

Nomads and Migrants

National, regional, and municipal elections are generally assumed to be about selection of representatives for a particular geographic area. Yet there are still people who travel, and as a result of this travel, have interests in more than one locality, or who cannot be assigned to a particular voting district or area. These nomadic and migrant people - whether their lifestyle is considered to be forced upon them by economic, political or climatic reasons, or simply chosen - pose a serious challenge (though idealistically by no means a threat) to concepts of democracy.

And they also pose a serious challenge to educators. For the most part, the societies they create and within which they establish their own leadership patterns, are relatively closed to outsiders. In addition, their interests may be such that they have excluded themselves or have been excluded from the general political discourse. Programme information for this group and voters in remote areas can be found in Reaching Nomads and Isolated Groups.

Voters in Remote Areas

In some countries, there are also likely to be voters in remote areas. These areas may be nearly impossible to reach by most forms of transportation, may have extremely limited access to mass media, and virtually no interaction with other communities. In the United States, such communities can be found in Alaska, while in the country of Georgia, they can be found along the Caucuses mountain chain. Despite their remoteness, there will be opportunities, however limited, to reach these communities. Advance planning and coordination will be required. Election materials will need to be delivered to these communities at some point and, in all likelihood, there will be government sponsored flights in and out of the area to transport food and other provisions and to move people. If helicopter flights are scheduled, arrangements can be made to ensure that voter education materials are delivered. Reaching Nomads and Isolated Groups provides programme information.

Minorities

Societies usually are not homogenous. Most countries have self-defined ethnic, linguistic, or cultural minorities. Because these groups are minorities, there have likely been past mindsets and practices aimed at marginalising them, often leading to distinctive and oppressive treatment. With disempowerment comes introspection and apparent apathy. And with isolation from the dominant culture comes a set of cultural and linguistic norms that make it hard to prepare educational programmes unless due account is taken of these as well as the power relations that apply in their interactions with the majority.

There may even be resistance to educational programmes that appear designed to assimilate groups or undermine the cohesion of these groups. And some minorities may even find democracy itself to be a threat. Managing these alienations from the democratic process is not a task for voter educators alone. It is often a major challenge for those involved in civic education and those engaged in developing democratic and human rights institutions.

The Disabled

In an increasing number of countries specially challenged people and those with disabilities are organising themselves. This is particularly true in democratic societies where it is possible to mobilize for the purposes of gaining access to state and private sector resources. With an imperative to enable all people to participate in elections, election officials and voter educators need to undertake efforts to ensure that disabled people are neither disenfranchised nor ill-informed.

It may well be that the most important interventions in this regard are not primarily about education for the disabled. Structural and infra-structural sensitivity, the development of voting methods and access to voting stations, and the training and education of officials and able-bodied citizens are all essential.

But if there are voter education programmes for the able-bodied, then these need to be replicated for those who are not. There are a range of special methods and techniques required that are discussed in Participation of Shutins and the Disabled. Most important may be demographic information and the cooperation of institutions and associations working with the disabled are required.

Home and Hospital Bound Voters

Inevitably, there will be voters who are too frail or ill to come to the polls on election day. Depending upon election law and practice, arrangements may be made for the homebound or for patients in hospitals, nursing homes, or rehabilitation centres to vote. Special polling places may be established or they may be permitted to vote absentee or by use of a mobile ballot box. To accomodate their needs, there are likely to by some modifications to the voting process as well as specific procedures to request special voting services. These will need to be addressed through the voter education programme.

Traditional Prisoners

Prisoners lose their liberty once they are convicted by a court of law to a custodial sentence. They do not, however, always lose their citizenship. In some countries, sentencing may even include a determination of whether civic rights are withdrawn or not for the duration of the custodial sentence. In other countries, it is assumed that with the loss of liberty goes the loss of those things that require freedom of movement. Voting may be one of them.

The increasing use of detention for people awaiting trial, and not yet convicted of any crime, the extensive use of non-custodial sentences, through which one person convicted may be able to vote and another in custody for a similar offence not, suggests that more attention should be given to this segment of the population.

This is particularly the case in societies that believe that prison is intended to both punish and rehabilitate. Prisoners leave prison all the time and return to normal society. Whether they do this after short or long sentences, they require information and education that will enable them to participate more constructively in society. This includes taking part in elections. Consequently, some thought has to be given to civic and voter education of prisoners whether or not decisions are made to allow them to vote. Such a programme imposes special challenges that are discussed in Education of Prisoners and Education in Closed Institutions.

Political Prisoners

In some developing countries and transitional societies, there may be another use for prisons, ie. to detain political opponents and social dissidents. Whether still in prison, or released as the result of some sort of negotiated or imposed settlement, amnesty or pardon, this group will have special needs and face special challenges re-integrating into society and political life, including constructive participation in politics by voting and other means. If political prisoners do not engage in the process, the legitimacy of the election or the resulting government could well be undermined. These issues will need to be addressed with special care and sensitivy through voter and civic education programmes.

Security Forces

In societies that have been involved in civil strife or internal repression, citizens who comprise the military and/or police forces are often compromised and isolated. In situations such as these, special efforts have to be made at demobilization and rehabilitation. Once again, education will have to be directed both at those in the security forces and those outside.

But there are other demands that occur even in consolidated democracies. Soldiers are posted to foreign or isolated bases, these bases are closed to general civic influences for security and control reasons, and soldiers in particular can be susceptible to threat and intimidation. In some societies with militarized police forces similar concerns apply.

In addition, uniformed services that involve the use of force, whether for rebellion and resistance or for the legitimate or illegitimate exercize of state authority quickly develop a language, pace of life, and culture of their own. These concerns need to be taken into account when developing educational programmes (see Approaching Military and Police Forces and Education In Closed Institutions). Such educational programmes are important because these forces can either be a guarantor of election security and successful transition of power, or a major stumbling block to it.

Women

It is no longer acceptable for a country to establish democratic systems and elections without enfranchising women. Enfranchisement, however, did not come without a struggle. And legal enfranchisement is one thing, but being able to participate fully in civic affairs and to vote in elections is entirely another. While women form the majority in many countries, they are often under-represented in political life.

Education alone will not change this. But it is possible and often necessary to develop educational programmes that take particular account of the cultural and economic barriers to participation and advancement that affect women. There are examples of materials that have been designed to meet the educational and information needs of women throughout the world.

Where these barriers coincide with minority membership, poverty and geographic dispersal, they form a high wall that must be climbed or broken down.

Young and First Time Voters

At every election there are new voters amongst those who reach voting age. Programmes in schools that encourage civic participation and electoral competence ultimately go some way towards motivating young people to vote. But supplementary voter education programmes need to be developed that reflect the youth culture. This is particularly true in developing countries and transitional societies where the youth cohort is substantial and where young people are often mobilized in support of one or another political party which may not necessarily have the best interests of those young people in mind.

While young people reaching the legally mandated voting age may constitute a significant percentage of first time voters, there are other groups that need to be taken into account. These may include newly enfranchised voters (who may constitute some of the groups such as minorities or women), new citizens, or even some other segment of the population that has been traditionally apathetic but that has been mobilized and energized by a particular registration drive, social issue, or political party, campaign, or candidate.

Any citizen voting for the first time in elections will likely have less information about his or her rights and about how the process works. First time voters may even find some aspects of the registration and voting process particularly bureaucratic and perhaps even intimidating. Educators must identify the information needs and possibly the fears of this group to ensure that these can be overcome and that this group does not opt out of the process.

Background Considerations

In addition to the educational needs of the general electorate and any variety of target groups, there will be a number of other considerations that educators will need to take into account:

Political, Constitutional, and Legislative Considerations:

The consitutional and legislative framework may place certain requirements on educators, particularly from election authorities or other statutory bodies, when it comes to voter information and education. They may be required to provide information to the electorate at large and/or to particular groups within society. Political pressures may also affect the parameters of the voter education programme.

Logistical Considerations:

Certain logistical considerations may also come into play. Are there particular groups, for example in remote areas, that may be particularly difficult to reach? Does the country's transportation and communications infrastructure present certain problems. Are the logistical obstacles real or are they being artificially created to keep certain groups uninformed and inactive? Can logistical obstacles be overcome and what resources will be required to do so? The answers to these questions will impact the parameters of the voter education program.

Educator Values:

Finally, educators do bring to the voter education exercize their own values, assumptions, and biases. These need to be identified so that educators can be confident that the programme actually addresses the real needs of voters rather than merely fulfilling the preconceived notions of an elite group.

Political, Constitutional, and Legislative Considerations

The determination of the most appropriate audiences for voter education is not entirely in the hands of the voter educator. Politics, constitutions and laws constrain or direct the programme.

Role of Politics

Voter education empowers voters. It encourages them to register and, if registered, to vote. It instructs them how to correctly mark their ballots to ensure that they are not invalited during the counting process. It encourages them to make up their own minds about who to vote for, and it gives them the skills necessary to weigh the options open to them. These are activities that have political consequences. So it is not surprising if there are attempts made by political interests either to expand the mandate of voter educators or alternatively reduce it through formal and informal means.

In situations where elections have begun to take on a regular tempo, and where there is general social consensus about the benefit of elections and the potential for regular alteration in government, election authorities may be able to establish an educational programme that is comprehensive and inclusive. In societies where there are still high stakes and where elections are being driven by international coercion or an inclination to establish public legitimacy without extending political power, however, there will be attempts to reduce the opportunities for broad-based voter education.

Under such circumstances, it will be necessary to manage forms of interference in voter education that range from intimidation and violence targeted at both educators and participants, and attempts to limit voter access, to discrediting educators and their programmes and decisions about budget, legislation,the timing of elections, and other matters in the hands of government.

Constitutions Make Judgements and Confer Rights

Where there are constitutions, and in particular in societies that operate under bills of rights, there are likely to be questions of equity. In some societies it may be possible to focus voter education on particular groups. But statutory authorities are likely to be faced with a requirement that all voters should receive equal treatment and equal service. This can act as a motivator for voter educators. But it may also inhibit them from offering more than very basic information on a universal basis.

Anything more than a basic and general voter education programme would require some differentiation. And this would have to be handled carefully so as to avoid any controversy that could undermine the programme. This may be the case, for example, in a legal challenge about a programme only being provided to one sector of society or being offered at different cost levels in different parts of the country.

There are settings where there is no constitution. This may stem from a society that operates on a set of historical documents and precedents such as Great Britain. Or, it may be because a country is revising its constitutional framework or its previous constitution has been undermined by conflict. In such cases, voter educators may in fact have the advantage of being able to draw on other mandates to focus their education on target groups such as previously disenfranchised people, or combatants, or ethnic or linguistic minorities, and so on. Whatever the case, educators will not want to take for granted that a universal and limited service is the most appropriate and most effective form of voter education.

Legislation Establishes Responsibilities and Limitations

Election authorities are given a particular mandate by legislation or, in some cases, by executive order. This mandate may include the responsibility to provide voter information or education. Election authorities in some countries, for example in Russia, Ukraine, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Paraguay, have a substantial mandate to conduct voter and/or civic education.

In others, particularly in developing or transitional settings, the election authority may have no clear mandate to conduct voter education. While the need for some form of official voter education may seem obvious, election authorities, particularly those in highly politically polarized environment, may be hesitant to overstep their legal mandate, or will at least be particularly sensitive to such perceptions. In cases where legislation constrains official voter educators, it may be possible for them to make use of their relationships with educators in the civil society sector either to extend their own programme or to ensure that the responsibility for voter education is being assumed by some qualified and appropriate entity. It is the legislation, however, that will determine whether this extended or alternative work receives any funding from official sources.

Logistical Considerations

While it may be possible to use creative and innovative means to provide voter education solutions that address all voters, finding the right solution often means finding balance between the ideal and the practical. But it may also be impossible. And choices will have to be made on the basis of simple logistical constraints. Among these constraints will be:

• the size of particular groups
• the isolation of particular groups
• the time available
• the ability to have materials produced or translated
• the ability to deliver and distribute materials
• the number of educators available

With limited budgets and an election to run, it is likely that voter education programmes could feel the pinch. But it will be important for educators to make arrangements to reduce, if not eliminate, the constraints on their programmes.

Because there will always have to be polling sites, even in the most remote areas, and because these will need to be supplied with materials and with staff, voter educators always have access, even if limited, to those same voters. More importantly, careful planning can reduce logistical problems and potential costs of the election. Voters who can show up at the right place and time, come equipped with the proper identification, know how to properly mark their ballots, and are capable of passing effeciently through the polling site can lead to a reduction in the number of poll workers and the number of hours polling sites need to stay open, while limiting the security needs on election day.

These arguments in favour of voter education despite logistical constraints suggest that those posing severe logistical constraints should at least have their motives examined to ensure that they are not trying to limit the access of particular groups of voters to the polls. Nevertheless, there may still come a time when educators have to evaluate costs and benefits, and accept that there may be some voters who have to be excluded from more general programmes. Where this does happen, some form of supplementary programme may be necessary.

Educator Values

The values that educators espouse and their own experience and background will have an impact on where education is made available, who receives the programme, and what the programme covers. In resource-rich situations, this may not be a problem, but in countries with limited resources, special care will have to be given to making sure that certain voters are not ignored.

Voter educators employed by the election authorities may not be able to shrug off particular groups of learners because they do not like them or consider them to be irrelevant. But even they are not immune from personal bias. Nonstatutory educators, on the other hand, make decisions all the time about which groups of people they intend to work with and which they intend to ignore. In most cases these decisions are made on the basis of a set of operating values that may be explicit, and hence transparent and predictable. But this is not always the case. Sometimes, NGOs and community organisations can be blind to their own biases.

As a result of these values and biases, it may happen that particular targets and constituencies get a great deal of attention and others none at all. Where there is transparency on the part of educators, official voter programmes can choose to "fill the gaps." Or they may identify particular sets of voters on the basis of the value system espoused by the electoral authorities, or simply undertake a general voter education program and require that nonstatutory groups either "fill the gaps" or target groups with special needs. The crucial issue here is to make the values and biases upon which decisions are made visible, if only to the education planners themselves.

In addition to choices about particular target groups, educator values can also determine in advance certain choices about educational needs. Often, election authorities may be chosen for their legal background or even seconded from the judicial branch. They may have vast experience in the government bureaucracy and be familiar with all pertinent laws, regulations, and procedures. At the same time, they may be quite far removed from the administrative concerns of poll workers and the information and awareness levels of ordinary voters. Ideally, there should be a dialogue between the educator (who has something) and the learner (who wants something) - especially when the learners are adults - in order to identify educational needs. The decisions about what the educator will offer and how, the educational needs deemed to be appropriate, and which of these will be addressed are all value decisions.

Where there are a large number of educational initiatives, and unlimited resources, it may not be necessary to worry too much about these questions. Planning can make use of the various interests being expressed by voter educators to ensure general coverage. But this may not always be the case, particularly in developing countries and transitional settings, so care will have to be taken to ensure that there are not system breakdowns (i.e., unanticipated gaps that lead to failure of the programme) because educators decided not to provide education in a particular language, or to a certain target group, or to a particular village, or even a particular radio station or newspaper.

Care also has to be taken to make sure that choices do not devour resources in favour of one group at the expense of another because they know how to vote or they never vote or even, in the worst of all possible scenarios, because "they will vote for them rather than us."

Assessing Voter Needs

Educators have to anticipate and understand the needs of those for whom they are designing programmes. There are a number of different ways of assessing needs, and those planning an education programme will want to consider these on the basis of:

• available time;
• complexity of the programme and its geographic spread;
• whether the programme is being implemented for the first time or whether there is some institutional knowledge with respect to reaching the target constituency; and
• available finances.

Mainly, educators will want to secure professional assistance. This section provides the overview that they might need to determine what professional assistance will be required and how to manage that assistance. "Surveys" describes the most complex and most likely activities that an education team will commission out. But it is possible to use "Existing Data", and to make use of the education team itself to obtain information through "Interlocutors and Intermediaries".

Surveys

In order to develop effective programmes, voter educators have to know about voters or potential voters. They need to know what people know (or think they know). They also need to know how people feel about elections and voting. And finally, they need to know what is likely to encourage them or inhibit them from voting.

How can this information be obtained? One could look into a crystal ball. One could guess. It could be useful to look at past experiences. Talking to others involved in the field would be a good idea. What about simply asking voters, or potential voters, themselves? But it would be impossible to speak to everyone. So how can one be assured that the information obtained from a limited number of people will be worth anything? Will they be representative of all potential voters?

Using Surveys

Surveys are useful when it is necessary to learn about the attitudes, values, motivations, predispositions, and likely behaviours of large numbers of people. Surveys are also useful when the results need to be generalized to some larger population.

Focus Groups

With very small numbers of people - say, a few dozen - it is often better to use more qualitative, in-depth forms of research such as focus groups that allow people to speak at length about their feelings. Then, one can simply review the transcripts of the group discussions to learn their thoughts and attitudes. Focus groups often provide great insight into a topic. The richness of such transcripts is very difficult to quantify, but with a small number of cases, quantification is often pointless.

It is important to realize, however, that focus groups are not simply any meeting or unstructured conversation. Focus groups employ a specific methodology with respect to the selection of people to be in the groups. Groups should be as homogenous as possible, and the groups should be structured to reflect the key differences of potential interest. One group might include all young male first-time voters, for example, and another might include all young female first-time voters. Insight comes from both the carefully facilitated conversations in each group, as well as the differences between the groups. The insights generated from focus groups are often useful in order to identify key issues to be addressed in a larger quantitative survey, or to investigate questions unearthed by such surveys in more depth.

Designing Surveys

This discussion is intended to aid two types of people. First, many people might want to undertake a survey on their own and thus might find this a useful guide, or blueprint to all the key steps that they will have to work through. It would not, however, provide a sufficient "users manual" to take you through each step in depth.

Some detail has been included in these sections so that a person interested in the subject will have a complete guide to what may be one of the most expensive parts of a national voter education programme. Other readers may wish to ignore the technical information that follows.

The various dimensions associated with a survey are often beyond the capabilities and resources of any given individual or organization. Thus, many organizations would more likely want to hire a professional research firm experienced with surveys to do this work for them. At no point, however, should control of the process be relinquished. This description is intended to enable election authorities to maintain critical control in monitoring the project.

Thinking your way through a successful survey consists of a series of steps:

• Survey Design
  

• Question Framing
• Survey Preparation
• Sampling
• Selecting Participants
• Getting Into the Field

Survey Design

Deciding What Information is Needed

First a decision will need to be made about what information needs to be collected and why. This process can be initiated by asking a few simple questions: "What opinions or likely behaviours do you want to know about?" In social science jargon this is called the dependent variable. "What do you think are the causes?" These are the independent variables. The answers will provide some important foundations for the survey's content.

Suppose one wanted to know about the causes of voter turnout, or the dependent variable. A decision is made to test the varying impacts of potential causal factors such as:

• information
• motivation
• interest
• efficacy
• perceptions of the degree of electoral competition among parties in a given election

These will be the independent variables. Basically, then, five key factors have been identified that are important and need to measured. All that is left is to define each of these concepts, or factors, so that there is agreement about what is meant by such terms as "electoral competition" or "motivation."

A "conceptual framework", therefore, is created that should act as the blueprint for the entire project. At any point in the project, one should be able to guage whether what is being done is helping to measure an element identified in this framework. If it is not, one may discover that he or she has gone off track (which is easy to do), and is working on something peripheral to his or her real interests.

At the same time, while writing survey questions, it may become apparent that there are some really important things that one needs to know about, but that have not been included in the blueprint. At that point, one should not simply write a new question in an ad hoc fashion, but should go back and put the new concept into the blueprint.

Conceptualization is usually based on:

• your knowledge of the local context;
• reviewing what is known and published about the subject, e.g. voter turnout;
• consultation with experts in the field.

Before Idasa's Public Opinion Service (POS) conducted a survey on the Cape Flats about public views toward crime, policing and collective action, for example, it called in a range of criminlinologists, sociologists, social workers, and journalists with extensive experience on the ground as well as with the relevant academic literature. This helped in the identification of the key conceptual areas, and thus, the parameters of the questionnaire.

Operationalization

At this stage, the goal is to begin formulating a structured questionnaire by designing specific questions to measure the "real world" existence of the phenomena or attitude in the conceptual framework. In other words, the conceptual framework is being converted into an actual questionnaire.

Ideally, several questions should be designed to measure each key concept. One single question can often be an unreliable indicator of people's attitudes in that area. The ultimate goal is to be able to average the responses to all the questions about a concept to provide a valid and reliable aggregate measure or index of the concept (such as "interest"). The series of questions should not simply measure the same exact thing, but tap various dimensions or elements of "political interest".

A valid question, or series of questions, is one that actually measures what is meant by efficacy. One form of validity is called "Face Validity". That is, by reading the actual question wording, the question wording appears to be getting at what the intent. Another form is called "Construct Validity". This is when responses to the question, or series of questions, seem to correlate internally with one another, or with other questions that measure things that one would expect to be related to political interest.

"Reliability" refers to the extent that the questions would yield the same responses from one sample to the next, at any given point in time. Various types of statistical tests exist to help assess the extent of construct validity and reliability.

"Operationalization" is probably the most time consuming aspect of the survey process. Converting concepts into valid, reliable questions that measure exactly what they are intended to measure requires much thought and careful phrasing.

Framing Questions to Maximize Survey Data

In general, questions should measure precisely what they are intended to answer. They should be as clear and accessible as possible, especially in places with low levels of education and literacy. Wording and phrasing, therefore, are crucial.

A useful guide is to look at the work of respected analysts in an area, such as voter turnout, and to examine the types of questions they are asking. What do other people internationally ask in order to measure efficacy, or likely voter turnout?

Asking questions that have been asked elsewhere also enables one to compare one's results with what has been found in other places and at other times. This is crucial. Any given result from a survey - such as that 34% of South Africans are not interested in politics - may mean something on its own. On the other hand, it may mean more if we knew that it was much higher, much lower, or about the same as people in other countries.

At the same time, a particular context might demand a uniquely worded question. Thus, there is a fine line between developing questions that are meaningful in a specific context, and producing results whose comparability helps enhance one's understanding of local dynamics.
Beyond these general comments, there are a number of potential pitfalls the question designer should understand.

Open-ended Questions

These questions allow the respondent to answer spontaneously, on their own terms. Rather than asking people to rate the importance of several possible reasons for voting on a scale of "very important" to "not important at all"' for example, one might ask them: "What are the most important reasons to vote?" Then, they have the advantage of not presuming what needs to be proven.

Open-ended questions, however, are very expensive. Most survey companies will allow for only three to four in their normal quotations. A typical question, such as "What are the most important problems facing the country?", may get dozens of unique responses. All of them have to be examined and categorized or "coded" into broader categories that are considered useful. This is a very time consuming process and drives up labour costs considerably.

Closed-ended question, those that have a closed set of responses from which people may choose, also present a range of potential problems that are discussed in greater detail below.

Framing

Framing refers to how important issues are presented or "framed" in a survey question. Which aspects of a larger issue should be tapped? Which set of policy alternatives should be offered to respondents? Should a question on the location of a parliament tap costs and efficiency? Should South Africa have one administrative capital in Pretoria, for example, and one legislative one in Cape Town? Or should they be put together in one city? Or, should the question ask about changing the status quo? Again, as an example, should parliament be kept in Cape Town , where it presently is, or should it be moved to Pretoria or somewhere else? These question may yield quite different results, with very different political implications.

While different frames can yield significantly different results, decisions about which frames to use are almost impossible to resolve and will almost always invite criticism from some part of the political spectrum.

Question Order

Question order can shape responses by altering the larger context in which respondents think about an issue. Because answers to one question can be shaped by answers to previous ones, questions that are themselves fairly unbiased may create a very different effect when asked in combination. Questions on likely voter turnout, for example, may be biased in favour of higher potential participation if those questions were preceded by items asking people about people's duty to vote, thus reminding them of that duty.

Response Order

The order in which possible responses are listed may also have important effects on results. When extreme response items are placed before a more moderate response - the "contrast" effect - the preceding extreme responses increase the likelihood of choosing the following, more moderate response.

Order effects also differ according to interview method. With phone surveys or personal interviews that are read out, there is a "recency effect" where respondents tend to choose latter options from a list because they have more time to think about them. In contrast, visual presentations like showcards or mail questionnaires may have a "priming effect" where earlier alternatives tend to be chosen because people are more likely to think about the first alternative.

One-sided vs. Forced-choice Questions

"One-sided" questions ask people to agree or disagree with a statement, to favour or oppose some position, or to state some degree of an opinion. With "forced-choice" questions, the researcher attempts to provide balanced alternatives, such as, "Do you favour the government doing X policy, or should it pursue Y policy?".

"Agree" or "disagree" response sets tend to bias results in favour of the "agree" response, especially when knowledge is low. Less educated respondents with little political experience may be especially susceptible to these effects. When people have given little thought to a topic, they are less likely to develop counter arguments against one-sided statements and are more likely to acquiesce.

The typical solution is to offer respondents a second, or even a third, substantive alternative - a forced choice. This provides respondents with a counter argument. This generally decreases the number of people favouring the first alternative in a single-sided format and also changes the distribution of opinion. Yet the strength of the arguments and alternatives presented is important - not all are equally effective. Creating a second substantive alternative also places researchers in the awkward position of shaping public opinion by deciding which alternatives to include as well as the substance of those alternatives.

Double-barreled Questions

One pitfall typically to be avoided is the "double-barreled" question. Here a proposed alternative is coupled with a solution. An example would be, "Do you approve of a tax increase to end the budget deficit?" Respondents may not be clear about what their response will mean.

 
Does a "yes" mean they approve of the tax increase, for example, or getting rid of the deficit, or both?

A "one-and-a-half-barreled question" contains qualifications that lead respondents toward choosing a specific alternative.

Key Words

Another potential area of difficulty is the actual wording used to describe the object or referent of a given proposition. Is government funding designed to deal with "drug addiction" or "drug rehabilitation", "assistance to the poor" or "welfare," "assistance to the poor" or "improving conditions of the poor"? Are respondents being asked to approve of the "president's policy" or his "handling of the policy"?

What words describe the actual choice respondents are asked to make? Are they asked to "approve," "support," or "favour" something, or rate it on a scale of "excellent," "quite good," "only fair" or "poor"?

A special form of this problem is the association of "buzzwords", or words used to evoke emotional responses from respondents, with response alternatives. These words may inject partisan or ideological calculations into responses, as well as allow less-educated responses. In the United States, the word "communist" was well known for its effects on responses to foreign policy questions. The mention of the president almost always has a large impact on the results, usually in favour of whatever the White House has done. In South Africa, one might well obtain significantly different results if people are asked to compare their lives now to twenty years ago, that is, if they were asked to compare to "life under apartheid."

"Don't Knows"

Question format also affects the number of people who offer an opinion. Increased levels of "don't know" (DK) are obtained by agree/disagree questions, questions on remote and abstract issues, and ones with greater task difficulty (e.g., ones that require long explanations or require respondents to make future-oriented projections).

The level of DK can also be affected by the use of a "filter", such as, "Or haven't you had a chance to think about this?" Filters usually increase the absolute number of DK responses by legitimizing non-response. But filters can also affect the actual substantive distribution of opinion. Those who are likely to give an opinion when they really don't have one do not come from the various response options in a random way. The problem is made more difficult because "floaters" (those who give differing responses to different types and forms of questions) are difficult to predict and don't seem to be characterized by any single trait.

All of the potential difficulties reviewed in this section arise because of the way human beings think. The way in which humans process information is greatly affected by how that information is presented. This is no less true of the survey environment. People do not conduct exhaustive searches for representative instances of an opinion or an attitude in long-term memory. Rather, they look for the most accessible information from either the environmental context of recent history or experience, or from the immediate context of the questionnaire and interview.

There are no easy answers. A question's meaning is always partially dependant on where it is placed in the questionnaire. The way we consider our response is always partially dependent on what the response alternatives are and how they are presented to us.

Besides a few well-worn "rules of thumb," therefore, there appear to be no obvious solutions to many wording problems. While we may try to avoid "contaminating" questions, "clean" questions stripped of political context may be unrealistic and irrelevant. Buzzwords and double-barrelled associations are often what give a survey questions political realism.

Survey Preparation

Before going into the field with the interviewers, every questionnaire should be tested on respondents similar to those who will be interviewed in the actual survey. On the basis of this trial run, flaws in the questionnaire can be identified and necessary adjustments made.

While it might sound Orwellian in the extreme, most pilot studies are done in a small room with a one way mirror so that one can watch the actual interview, as well as see and hear exactly what goes on with regard to the questions, answers and body language.

This provide an excellent opportunity to check whether:

• instructions are clear to the interviewer;
• questions are clear to both the interviewer and respondent;
• questions read well;
• questions make the person uncomfortable or anxious;
• respondents tire and give less thought to their answers, and at what point this occurs;
• questions gather the types of answers in which we are really interested.

In testing questions on social identity, for example, Idasa found that the wording: "What do you call yourself?" was generating some very personal labels, such as "nice person" and "open minded", which was not the information being sought. So it was necessary to provide some sort of context in which the person was to answer the question. So the question was changed to: "Thinking of all the groups in South Africa..." (a listing of various types of groups was provided) "which group would you consider yourself belonging to first and foremost?"

Pilot testing usually leads one back to the drawing board to rewrite at least some questions, or to delete some questions. If it appears from the pilot test that the questionnaire is too long, the conceptual framework will need to be revisited. In the final analysis, some decision will need to be made as to whether to drop whole concept areas from the survey that may be interesting but not vital or to drop one or two questions from each concept area.

Translation

In a multilingual society, it is imperative that every respondent is able to answer questions in the language with which they feel most comfortable.

While it is extremely time consuming, the best way to ensure that questionnaires mean what they are intended to mean after translation is by using the "double blind" method. One set of linguists takes the original questionnaire and translates it into the desired languages. Then, a separate set of linguists take those versions and translate them back into English (or the original language).

At that point, the re-translated version needs to be checked against the original language. Any differences need to be reconciled by finding another word in either the original or the translated language that better expresses the key concept. Note, however, that if the original language is changed, all the other translations need to be revised accordingly.

Yet good translators do not simply translate every word. They must know when respondents may be used to hearing key words in a another language, such as "parliament", so that the proper term can be used.

Interview Method

The method of interview is key. Responses to survey questions are not necessarily independent of the way in which they are obtained.

Telephone

An increasingly popular method is to contact respondents by telephone. Telephone surveys are often cheaper, because they do not require interviewers to travel all over the country or region to people's houses, and they may be quicker.

A major problem is presented, however, by actual rates of telephone ownership. Even in the United States, it has been estimated as late as the early 1990's that five percent of the national population (and ten percent in some states) still did not have a telephone.

The big problem is that telephone ownership is not random. It is highly associated with household income. Those who do not have telephones are extremely likely to have social and political views that differ sharply from those who do have telephones. In developing countries, the low and highly uneven incidence of telephone ownership makes nationally representative surveys impossible, significantly under-representing lower income households.

In the U.S., the Gallup organisation once estimated that pre-electoral telephone surveys were five to six points more favourable to Republican candidates than to Democrats. A striking example in South Africa occurred in 1992, when the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) used a telephone survey to project that F.W. de Klerk had more support than Nelson Mandela in a hypothetical presidential race. The HSRC observed that they had correctly weighted the final responses according to the correct racial proportions of the country. What they forgot, however, is that those Africans with telephones were not very typical of Africans in general.

Telephone surveys also make it easier for people to opt out of the survey and, therefore, out of the sample. As noted below, it is important not to allow people to self-select themselves out of the sample. Moreover, telephone interviews rarely establish the rapport possible in personal interviews, which is necessary to allow interviewers to lead respondents into controversial topics.

People are simply more reluctant to express negative attitudes with unseen strangers. Because telephone samples are also likely to include alienated people, they are generally biased toward less negative data. In some situations, however, the lack of direct contact may render telephone surveys preferable.

Post/Mail

In a survey by mail, a questionnaire is simply sent to the respondent through the post. The questionnaire is then self-administered. Because they involve relatively minor labour and postage costs, they tend to be relatively cost effective.

On the other hand, mail surveys tend to get a very low response rate. To get a one-third to one-fourth return rate is considered a major success, and even these rates require a good deal of work contacting recipients a second or third time to coax them to fill it out and return it. Other incentives may be offered, such as prizes or chances to win prizes.

In some places, the effectiveness of postal surveys is also greatly hampered by both the quality of the postal service and high levels of illiteracy. For these and other reasons, postal surveys are usually only carried out on specific targeted populations, most often very educated audiences, top-level managers, or "elite decision makers."

Personal Interviews

Personal interviews can establish a relationship of trust with the respondent, allowing more sensitive questions and more in-depth answers. Because respondents can actually see their interviewer in face-to-face interviews, interviewer characteristics such as race and gender may influence the willingness of respondents to offer socially undesirable responses on issues of race and gender. Thus, in a place like South Africa, survey companies usually try to make sure that interviewers are of the same race as their respondent. If the survey was on sex, or gender issues, an effort would be made to ensure that interviewers were the same sex as respondents.

Personal interviews tend to be expensive, however, because of labour and travel costs. In addition, personal interviews face many logistical hurdles not encountered in the other methods. Most simply, there is the prospect of getting past someone's front gate, let alone through their door. Especially in South Africa, "bad" neighbourhoods, apartment building security systems and other minor problems, such as Rotweiller or Doberman Pinscher dogs, often prevent surveyors from contacting everyone in the sample.

Again, if unchecked, "non-response" (those who cannot be reached at home or who refuse to be interviewed) can play havoc with a sample because these people almost always differ from the general population in attributes and attitudes.

Sampling

Surveys are useful when we want to know about large numbers of people. The goal is to speak to some smaller number of people (sample) and to generalize to some larger group of people (population). Sampling is generally complex and usually requires lots of statistics and computers. But it is important to understand the basic logic so as to intelligently communicate to a fieldwork company what is desired and to adequately check on what they actually do.

For what population is information being sought and generalized? Is it all voters? Only likely voters? Only men or only women? Only young or old? Only black or white voters?

Drawing a sample of some larger population can be likened to making soup. When mixing up a big bowl of soup, any good cook will tell you that you only need two or three spoonfuls to get a reasonably reliable idea of what the entire bowl tastes like. Of course, this assumes that the soup has been mixed well and that, as a result, all the salt is not clumped in one corner, or that all the potatoes are not lying at the bottom of the bowl, or that all the garlic has not moved to the side of the bowl. Any of these possibilities would mean that the spoonfuls were likely to be unrepresentative of the whole bowl.

Again, assuming a well-mixed bowl, about the same number of randomly drawn spoonfuls will give a good idea of the taste regardless of whether the soup comes from an ordinary black pot on a home stove or one of those industrial-sized pots in a restaurant. The same number of spoonfuls should do if the bowl is well mixed. The number of desired spoonfuls may increase slightly, but not nearly as fast as the increase in the size of the bowl.

But few populations are "well mixed": there are often groups (or strata of people) whose attitudes differ significantly from other people (just as there are different vegetables and seasonings that taste differently) who are not randomly scattered throughout the population but tend to be clustered together in certain regions, cities or neighbourhoods.

Any possibility that a sample would miss, or under-represent, any of these groups or strata in a purely randomly drawn sample should be reduced to the greatest extent possible. In effect, while attempting to draw a sample that is representative of the whole population (or bowl of soup), one will probably also want to "stratify" the sample so as to draw mini, subsamples of each desired subgroup (thus ensuring adequate subsamples of potatoes, rice, and tomatoes).

This means paying attention to representing people of all race and language groups, all regions, or rich and poor, or urban and rural. Usually, these strata should be constructed so that their size is proportionate to the size of the stratum in the actual population. Thus, if the rural component of some desired population is 52 percent, the rural component of the sample should be the same.

Once a decision is made to stratify along more than two dimensions, however, deciding upon the actual composition of the sample can get quite complicated. A national sample in South Africa, for instance, might dictate that a given number of mixed-race, rural people from the Western Cape is needed as well as a given number of African and white rural people from that province. This would also mean getting numbers of metropolitan people from each group from that province as well. Since this can become quite difficult, a trained demographer or mathematician can help work this out.

In some instances, however, it may be desirable to have a disproportionate random stratified sample. This usually occurs when some desired subgroup comprises a very small proportion of the desired population. A proportionate sample in South Africa, for instance, would consist of only 9 percent mixed-race respondents and around 2 percent Indian-background respondents. But if, for reasons of cost, the national sample is only 2,000 people, this would result in less than two hundred actual mixed-race respondents and around forty Indian-background respondents.

It may not be possible, however, to base any reliable statistical estimates on a subsample of forty people. Even with two hundred people, the statistical margin of error may be so large that projections about mixed-race voters would not be very helpful to guide a voter education programme targeted to these communities. This would become even more important if one wanted to examine the differences between men and women, or urban and rural people, or party supporters, within mixed-race and Indian-background subsamples. The numbers of respondents within these subgroups would start to become unhelpfully small.

Thus, an "over sample" of small groups such as these might be considered. In this case, while some small group might merit only forty interviews on a strictly proportionate basis, a decision could be made to conduct a hundred interviews in order to have a more reliable base of information. Once all the data is selected, this disproportionate sampling is corrected by "weighting" the hundred interviews downward by the appropriate ratio so that they represent the correct proportion of the entire sample.

Weighting is also useful with regard to other important demographic attributes for which information exists, but will not be known until respondents open the door. The number of men and women in the desired population as well as the number of people in various educational strata may be known, for example. But it may not be possible to stratify the sample according to these traits a priori, because the interviewer will not learn until someone answers the door or the telephone, whether the respondent is male or female or how much education they have.

Once the sample is done, it can be compared to the actual population along demographic lines for which information is available. The people in the sample can be weighted upward or downward in the appropriate direction. Imagine, for instance, twice as many women being contacted in the sample than actually exist in the overall population. In this case, each woman in the sample would ultimately be weighted downward by half to bring the proportion of women in the sample to its proper proportion.

Constructing samples is a key determinant of the cost for a given survey. Samples that require a high proportion of rural respondents will tend to be relatively expensive given the costs of getting interviewers deep into rural areas.

To be able to survey representative samples on a national basis usually requires a considerable amount of infrastructure and personnel. Thus, most nongovernment organizations, even if they are able to design the project and are capable of analysing the results, will still contract a professional organization to conduct the actual interviews.

Selecting Participants

Getting To A Household

Once the desired construction of the overall sample, e.g. total sample size, plus the number of interviews to be conducted in each sub-stratum has been decided upon, the next step is to translate that desired sample into actual interviews.

There are at least two very different ways of proceding at this point. The key distinction is to decide between a random probability sample or a quota sample.

Random Probability Sample

Here, every person in the population has an equal and known chance of being selected in the final sample. This presumes that the size of the overall population is definately known. If that size is "n", then the person's probability of selection = 1 / n.

If there is a list of all the people living in a given population, pure random probability sampling means randomly drawing out the total number of names from that list until the desired number is reached. Or, if the sample has been stratefied into subsamples (e.g. urban and rural people), X number of names from the list of urban people, and Y number of names from the list of rural people would then be drawn. Once the sample is drawn, these persons would simply be visited, contacted by telephone, or mailed the questionnaire.

Even where there is a complete list of every person in the population, personal interviews using pure random sampling tends to be inordinately expensive. Getting interviewers out to each spot randomly selected by the random sampling procedure regardless of how remote it is from the other interview sites is costly. Thus, most personal interview strategies use clustered random sampling. That is, travel costs are minimized by sending a group of interviewers to some randomly selected location and then conducting a series of interviews at that location.

Clustered sampling is widely used because it reduces costs, but also because, very often, a list of names is not available. Many countries, or provinces, or municipalities, have no such list, or if they do, will not share them with a researcher.

Thus, although the size of overall population and the number of people living in various regions or in various subgroups might be known, there may not actually be a list of individual names. Clustered sampling around sampling points helps researchers get to individual households in a way that maintains randomness and an equal probability of selection.

This involves the selection of a series of what are called "primary sampling units" (PSUs). PSUs are the smallest units from which final sampling points will be randomly drawn. PSUs consist of the smallest geographical units for which there is reliable population data (and for most surveys, this means the population 18 years and older). In some counties with good census data, these may be called "Enumerator Areas."

Final sampling points cannot be randomly pulled from these PSUs because the PSUs will almost always have different population sizes. Even where there are census determined Enumerator Areas consisting of an set number of households each (for example, in Zimbabwe, EAs have 100 households each), the number of people in each household will differ. Thus, each potential PSU must be weighted by the actual number of people living in it. That is, the chance of selecting a final sampling point from a PSU must be proportionate to the actual population size of the PSU.

Once each PSU has been weighted by its population size, final sampling points can then be randomly selected from the list of PSUs. The actual number of final sampling points is determined by the number of interviews to be conducted at each point and the total sample size. Most surveys conduct between five and seven interviews at each point. Thus, if five interviews will be done at each point, and the overall sample size is 2500, a list of 500 final sampling points must be randomly selected.

Now we know where we want to go. For instance, a generated list might reveal 350 suburbs, some populous ones might be selected more than once, and 150 rural magisterial districts. Survey researchers will then find maps for each of those areas, and then randomly select a point in a suburb. This can get quite elaborate, as some researchers will lay over a transparency of randomly numbered points, then select a number at random, and then look for the street on the map it overlays. That is where they finally will send the interviewers.

In many areas, no good maps exist. Or, rural maps might be so large that they only show the locations of towns, but not streets within the towns. In this case, one might resort to a rule such as starting at some common point, such as a church, school, municipal building, or water tap.

Once interviewers know what point they have to go, then they should follow a set of rules that allows them to start picking houses, again at random. For instance, they might go to the agreed upon point, face the sun, or face east, and then proceed ten houses, and then interview at every fifth house. The rule should be random, but all your interviews should follow the same rule. The whole point is that the interviewer should play no role in the selection of the household.

The very last step involves selecting an actual, real live respondent. Again, giving every person an equal chance of selection demands that interviewers do not only speak to people who answer the door, or the telephone. If interviewers are working from a sample chosen from some grand population register, then they need to speak to the specific person whose name appears on the list.

If there isn't such a list, once interviewers are inside the door, or have someone on the phone, they will need to "enumerate" the household, or make a list of people who live in the household (and, normally, are citizens above the age of eighteen). Then they need to choose one name at random and interview that and only that person. A common way to select that person randomly is to ask which person in the household had the most recent birthday. In rural areas, people may often be irritated at not getting the chance to express themselves (especially if the head of household is not selected, particularly if it is a man), and they may not understand the birthday method. One visible way to display the logic of random selection is to distribute a series of colour coded cards to everyone who is eligible, then gather them and ask someone in the house to randomly pull a card from the stack: the person who had held that card is the one to interview.

However, not every door we knock upon nor every telephone call placed will result in a successfully completed interview. Many people will not be at home, many will be at home but remain inaccessible for a variety of reasons, and many people will simply refuse to speak to interviewers. As mentioned above, it is important that interviewers, to the greatest extent possible, not allow people to self-select themselves out of a sample. This is because those who are not at home or are unwilling to participate are likely to be different from the overall sample in important ways. The people more likely to be at home, especially if interviews are conducted during weekdays, are disproportionately likely to be young people, unemployed, housewives and the elderly. Those unwilling to talk to interviewers tend to be more alienated. Those types of people need to be represented in any sample. This is especially true if alienation is likely to be related to the topic of interest, like voting.

"Non-response" can play havoc with the representiveness of a sample. In the U.S., "non-response" rates have doubled since the 1950's, going from between 12% to 22% to anywhere from 30% to 55% for personal interviews and 25% to 35% for telephone samples. In South Africa, non-response rose well over 100% in some conservative white communities for surveys conducted in 1993 and 1994.

One method often used is to correct for non-response by "weighting" the obtained responses according to known census statistics. So, if not enough middle-aged men were actually interviewed, the responses of those middle-aged men may be "weighted upwardly" by some fraction. So, for example, if there are only half as many of this group as we need in the realized sample, we simply multiply each case by 1.5.

This is problematic, however, because it assumes that those who were not included in the sample or refused to be contacted are similar to those questioned across the entire range of attitudes tapped by the survey. However, by the very fact that the person was out of the home (probably working or shopping), or the very fact that they refuse to speak to the interviewer, probably makes them different from those people who are at home, or want to speak with the interviewer.

There are a few things that can to done to minimise the incidence of those who refuse to speak. Interviewers need to be extensively trained so that they are courteous as possible. The questionnaire should also feature an introduction that makes the survey as interesting as possible to the potential respondent, as well as convey to them the importance attached to their views. Finally, interviewers should ask if they have come at a convenient time, and if not, offer to make an appointment at a better time when the respondent is not busy and can spend some time concentrating on the questions.

Interviewers can try to minimize the effect of people not being at home in several ways. First of all, they should try and do a large share of interviews in the evening and at weekends. Weekdays are difficult because workers are out of the home, but housewives may have more time to speak to you. The absolutely worst time seems to be supper time, when people are busy either making dinner, or eating, and are most irritated at being disturbed.

Secondly, interviewers can devote a lot of attention to what are called "call-backs." If the person on the list or the person randomly selected with, for example, the birthday method is not available, interviewers should ask when that person is likely to return and then come back at that point in order to get the interview. Most survey companies require interviewers to make at least two, if not three "call backs" to get the originally selected person. Some large surveys providing marketing information on media and product usage actually require four call backs.

Only once the interviewer has made the required number of call-backs and still had no luck, should they be allowed to "substitute" another person for the original respondent. Furthermore, they should not substitute with someone else from that house. Rather, they need to follow some rule, such as going two or three houses to the right or to the left, or dialling a new number below or above the original number in the telephone listing, and go through the whole process again.

The whole point is to make an extra effort to ensure that those likely to be out of the home are not easily allowed to slip out of the sample, and that they are not easily substituted with the types of people that are more likely to be found at home.

The advantage of a random probability sample is that it allows researchers to take advantage of the mathematical laws of sampling for the purpose of generalizing sample results to the larger population. These laws tell us that the average (mean) of any randomly drawn sample will tend to equal the mean of the overall population from which it is drawn. More specifically, for any given sample size, these laws provide the formulae to calculate the exact margin of error around any sample. That is, for a given sample size, a sample estimate will be within plus or minus the true mean of the overall population 95 per cent of the time. This is because, if a large number of samples are drawn, the laws of probability indicate that about five percent would fall outside the normal margin of error. However, 95% of the samples would fall within a calculable range, or band, around the true population mean. The larger the sample, the more narrow that band.

Quotas

An alternative method is the quota sample. Here, the overall sample is constructed to represent the overall population along all the important lines of distinction. For instance, a decision is made that the sample should have certain percentages from each province and from each city, certain percentages of men and women, of each language group, and of each race group. However, the final selection of respondent is left up the interviewer.

Each interviewer is given a quota to fill in their area: that is, a list of the number of people they must find and interview who fit different demographic categories. So an interviewer may be told that they must find five African men and six African women who live in urban areas, and seven African men and eight African women who live in rural areas. However, they are not told which houses to go to, or streets to go to, or given any random process to follow. They must simply find people that fit the desired categories.

Because interviewers are relieved of the duty to go through all the random processes described above, they are able to obtain the desired number of interviewers much more quickly and with far less travel costs. This makes a quota sample considerably cheaper than a random probability sample.

However the major drawback is that, because the equal and known probability of inclusion that characterizes a probability sample has been dispensed with, mathematical theories of probability cannot be applied to make any inferences from a quota sample to the overall population. The frequency of responses from a quota sample can be calculated, but strictly speaking, the degree to which those results are representative of the true values in the overall population cannot be determined.

Getting Into the Field

Getting into the field requires the selection and training of interviewers as well as their deployment and management.

Interviewers

Whenever possible, only trained and experienced interviewers should be used. In any case, training is extremely important. If professional interviewers are not being used, the process of selecting respondents in the household needs to be reviewed thoroughly. The questionnaire should also be covered extensively, including how questions should be read and certain words emphasized. The importance of not prompting respondents inappropriately should be stressed and interviewers should be cautioned against giving their own opinion either explicitly or implicitly through clothing, facial expressions, or body language. Even experienced interviewers must be trained extensively with a new questionnaire.

Because they often work cheaply, university students are often hired to conduct interviews. A word of caution about this option is in order, however. Students who are interested in sociopolitical surveys often are politically active and may be more prone to communicate their own preferences to respondents in implicit and even explicit ways.

As mentioned above, one should make sure that interviewers are from the same background as their respondents, especially if the survey touches on related matters. On some occasions, however, it might be desirable to follow a different procedure.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork should be done under the strict supervision of field supervisors. Most respected companies will conduct call backs to at least 10 to 15 percent of the households interviewed, find the person interviewed to confirm they were actually interviewed, and also go through some of the questions to verify that the answers recorded were actually their answers.

Probably even more important than doing this, is that the interviewers know that it will be done and that their payment will depend on getting satisfactory results from the call backs. As a cross section of society, fieldwork interviewers are no different from an ordinary cross section of society. And, unfortunately, many a story has been told by exasperated researchers of finding their field workers sitting under a tree and filling in questionnaires with fictitious names, addresses, and answers. Call backs can be done by phone if such service is widespread in a population. If not, they need to be done in person and probably before an interview team leaves an area.

Field supervisors should also check all questionnaires before the team leaves an area to make sure everything has been filled in completely and correctly, and if not, send the interviewer back to that person and obtain the necessary information.

Receiving Data

Actual responses will then need to be entered into a computer readable format. There are several statistical software packages that provide accessible data entry features and can also read and manipulate that data once it is entered. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is one widely-used programme.

Fieldwork companies typically will enter the data and even provide a technical report. Even so, the organization paying for the survey should obtain its own data set on computer disk, preferably compatible with SPSS format. The organization may also want to do its own analysis, or if it is inexperienced in statistics, contract another individual or entity to to do this. The organization should, however retain the freedom to monitor and evaluate what is provided. Just as important, there are probably much larger sets of data manipulations, cross tabulations, or correlations that could be run, but that a survey company will not present in its technical report.

Time

To do a proper job, the length of time from conceptualization to actual data analysis and report writing can be unexpectedly long. Even when it is absolutely imperative to go into the field quickly to capture public reactions to some fast-breaking event, it is hard to imagine doing a good job in less than six weeks.

Personal interviews of a national sample could often take the most experienced company several weeks to complete. Larger projects, such as attempting to test some model of voter participation, will usually take at least several months or even up to a year if fastidious academics become involved.

Costs

Project costs will include administration costs, data entry, and general overheads. The largest portion of these costs usually is for fieldwork and includes costs of transport, lodging, and the actual labour of interviewers and field supervisors. The latter are determined by the number of interviews to be done, the number of telephone calls or household visits required to realize the number of actual interviews, the number of hard-to-reach areas to be visited, and the length of each interview. Thus sample size, stratification, interview clustering, and whether a probability or a quota sample is used are important both methodologically as well as financially.

Given the costs associated with conducting independent surveys, however, it is possible to buy space for one or two, or sometimes even a dozen or so, questions in on-going market research surveys. Market research organizations tend to conduct surveys on a regular basis, and, because a number of their clients may include questions, the costs of the survey are shared. Costs often can be calculated on a "per question" basis, sometimes with an initial "buy-in" charge. Many organizations decide to "piggy-back" their questions onto ongoing omnibus surveys. This is very efficient when one only wants to put a few questions to a representative sample, such as checking on current levels of interest in the next election, or current levels of registration. Also, the frequency of such omnibus surveys allows one to check these issues on a more regular basis and to monitor trends over time.

Some questions, like "Why are people uninterested?" or "Why are they not yet registered?", lead to many other questions. The more questions, the higher the costs. In addition, it may be desirable to get respondents focused on issues of voting, elections, and democracy in order to obtain more thoughtful and considered responses. With an omnibus survey, there may be no control over whether respondents are answering a question about the competitiveness of elections immediately after being asked about their monthly consumption of motor oil. Finally, due to reasons of cost and client interest, ongoing market research surveys may not be done in remote rural areas or poorer areas.

Using Existing Data

Educators trying to establish educational needs and to identify target constituencies and country infrastructures may, at first glance, assume that they have to do this from scratch. Perhaps they will, but a little time spent investigating existing data sources will have a number of benefits:

• less time needed for conducting an investigation
• lower overall costs
• gaps identified that allow more focused research
• general data gaps discovered to consider for more general developmental purposes

There are very few places where nothing is known. And there are very few places where there is no existing source of information. The trick in some closed or authoritarian societies, however, may be getting access to existing information.

International organizations will want to work closely with indigenous ones to access existing data. Often they are unaware of existing repositories of knowledge, particularly if it is of an oral and traditional nature, and they are often amongst the first to assume that something new and impressive must be done. But those working on election programmes need to understand their work within the larger democratization framework. Good information is needed by those who govern and by civil society. And elections should stimulate the gathering and availability of that information.

Paper, People, or Bytes

Information available in computer databases has the advantage of being easily updated and maintained as well as moved from one place to another. When carefully collected and where software and hardware planning has been done, databases can be remarkable. They can also be frustrating, however, especially in developing countries. Information may be stored in incompatible formats, or it may be out of date, incomplete, and often locked away. Computers can be a curse as well as a champion of open democracy.

Information on paper does not suffer from compatibility problems. Here the problems are ease of handling, whether the documents and publications are available, preservation, and the cost for revisions.

People See Only As Far As Their Horizon.

Those looking for data will want to look at questions of reliability, accessibility, and cost. In some settings, for example where there there have been authoritarian systems, there may be no official culture of "freedom of information." Government bureaucrats may be unresponsible to requests for information. They may consider it priviledged or even a state secret. There is also a danger that data collected by the government has been manipulated for political reasons. So even if it is made publicly available, it may be of little use to educators.

But even accurate data presents educators with a variety of useability issues. This is because there is a virtual sea of information that requires careful selection. Educators will want to establish precisely what information they require and how they intend to use it prior to even beginning the search. There will be iterations on these questions, because once some information is available it leads to further questions. Nevertheless focus is essential.

Look in the Obvious Places

Voter rolls and related data provide an immediate starting point if these rolls have been collected nationally or regionally. They will provide basic information about numbers of voters and geographic dispersal. In developing countries and transitional societies, however, voting rolls may be of poor quality. Educators in these types of situations will need to assess how accurate and current the voting rolls are in making a determination about their usability.

In order to establish the rolls, information shoud also exist about registration officials, places where registration has taken place, and possibly even places that were evaluated and then not used. Amongst these places will be many public venues, such as libraries, schools, community halls, clinics, and government offices, as well as more temporary structures linked to community gathering places, such as sports fields, markets, and so on.

Other basic information will be available in forms that can vary from the rudimentary to the highly computerized. Telephone directories can be useful as well as government directories, income tax mailings and address lists (where these are public documents), television and radio licence lists, and market research.

Beyond this basic address and geographic information, there will be government yearbooks and reports on a wide variety of subjects. In poor countries, these reports may have been done by international agencies or international companies interested in development plans and opportunities.

In addition to reports with a developmental focus, many countries have tourist bureaus and tourist publications that contain basic country and travel information. Bus and train timetables, hotel listings, contact offices for local information bureaus, all increase the amount of information about the country infrastructure and basic governance.

With the burgeoning of the Internet, it has become possible to do worldwide searches for information about countries. While not all of it may be held inside a country, it is surprising what information may be held in an academic institution. At present, access to such institutions in the western and northern hemispheres is greater on the web. but these institutions often host information servers that link organizations and networks in the southern hemisphere.

Beyond these basic sources of information, there may be libraries, government departments, research units linked to national, regional, and local governments, and national and regional statutory research institutes. All of these collect information, some of them will release it upon request and perhaps for a fee. International and domestic NGOs have vast amounts of personal experience. have collated information about countries and are often willing to make this available more freely than government departments.

Perhaps most useful of all, but not always accessible, is the data collected in political and marketing polls. The reason it is useful is its direct bearing on individual and group attitudes and insights into issues that relate to elections. If it is possible to develop a relationship with collectors of such survey information, it is possible to request them to reanalyse existing data to address particular questions voter educators may have.

All the sources and organizations listed above have been collecting information not for electoral purposes but for a variety of other reasons over an extended period of time. The information, therefore, has breadth and depth that officials preparing for a specific election period cannot hope to replicate.

At the same time, it suffers from the fact that it has to be reorganized in forms that are useful to educators. This may be difficult, time consuming, and costly. Data mismatches, information collected from different periods and with varying degrees of reliability, patchy information with biases towards cities and men, revenue producing activity, and old political debates all conspire against the compiler.

There may even be occasions when the task of assembling this information is larger, more time consuming, and more costly than going out and getting it anew. But this is unlikely in the sphere where educators are working. Focusing on developing an understanding of the voting population, the country infrastructure available to support the educational programme, and getting a grip on educational needs faced by various groups and audiences will all help to ensure that the data available can be more cost effective than anticipated.

Interlocutors and Intermediaries

While some educators are preparing focus groups and surveys, others prefer to go into the field and talk to people who are working with the target audience or constituency. This has the advantage of being quick, if adequate care is taken in establishing with whom conversations should be conducted. It also helps give educators access to a range of nuances and undercurrents that are difficult to achieve in any other way. Another benefit is that such people provide a fund of local knowledge about educational conditions, the political environment, and the identification of educational issues.

This consultation or conversation is conducted at a practitioner level, educator to educator; or at the level of educator and community leader. So it also ensures that ownership of the programme is developed from the very outset. There are disadvantages to this approach, particularly if it is relied on to the exclusion of additional data collection. But for educational purposes, where local knowledge and local ownership are so important, it is a potent and relatively cost-effective way to get the programme into the field.

It can be extended in effectiveness at limited additional cost by adding two related techniques. The first is the consultative conference where a range of people come together and discuss educational needs and educational conditions in a structured programme. The structured programme can either be very formal in nature, with different speakers addressing different topics, or more informal and dialogue oriented, with brief introductions to issues followed by facilitated round table discussions.

The specialised focus group selection of membership is based on practitioner competence and local knowledge.

Two Different Types of People

Going into the field and talking to people at random is not adequate. Care must be taken in the selection of people. Understanding the use of the two terms "interlocutor" and "intermediary" gives some insight into the selection that needs to be made. The terms also indicate some of the difficulties and limitations that can be encountered and allude to the care that must be taken. Interlocutors speak in the place of the target constituency or on behalf of them. Intermediaries stand between the educator and the audience and act as a bridge between them.

Educators will develop a list of people with whom to converse on the basis of their assessment of effective community education and nongovernmental organizations operating within the sphere of investigation. The sphere of investigation may be national, regional, or local. In addition, they will identify community leaders based on their legitimacy within the particular community.

Finally, they can engage in fruitful conversation with individuals who interface with the community and the world of the educator, such as students, academics and members of diplomatic bodies. The latter can be a particularly helpful group where there is a wide gap between the educator group and the community: as for example when an international programme is being planned or when the educator group has to work in a part of the country where they have no previous experience. Indeed it will be essential to identify such people who can join the educator team on an extended basis if possible, even as interpreters and drivers if not as educators themselves.

Identify People

Once a tentative list has been gathered, it can be assessed in cooperation with individuals who have already been identified. In other words the collection of the list of people is an iteractive process. Educators identify a first round of people, perhaps based on advice from a trusted NGO, or even as a directive from the election authorities. This group of people then suggests others whom the educator should contact.

The second list will grow and also contain people nominated on a regular basis. A second round of conversations will take place and the list will grow. At some point in this exercize, the list will become circular. In other words, new references will be made to people with whom the educators have already spoken.

Educators will want to take care to maintain good records of the conversations they have had and the details about those they have interviewed.

Confidentiality

In situations where these discussions are undertaken in contexts of conflict, and where those involved are discussing the needs of members of their own constituencies, there will need to be an understanding that the information being collected will be handled confidentially. Especially when conversations are being conducted between practitioners, there will be critical and reflective comment on organizations operating within the community and with the given constituency. The assumption of these conversations is that programmes are being developed to assist target audiences. Any other use of the information can have an impact on the relationships that exist between those being interviewed and the communities within which they operate.

Limitations

The techniques being proposed here are based on a methodology used in evaluation studies and described as "triangulation". This term is used in establishing the position of a place or person on a map. In other words, information is obtained which establishes a particular direction. Knowing where the direction is taken from enables one to draw a line across the map. Then a similar direction is taken from another position. If this is done three times from different points, a small triangle will be formed on the map. That is where the person or place will be found.

In the case of conversations and interviews that take place with a variety of interlocutors and intermediaries about the same community, the educator will be taking notes both about the information being given and the source of that information. In other words, they will judge the information relative to the interests and position of the person giving the information.

If this is done with care and if the same conversation is conducted with a range of people, the data about the community will become more and more reliable. It will be possible to place the community within a map of data, some of which confirms and expands while some of which establishes scepticism and negative implications.

As mentioned, there can be problems. These can be overcome, however, if this particular technique is coupled with the gathering of information from other means, such as surveys, existing data and focus groups. It is also possible to test the data being gathered with a reference group.

Reference Groups

Educators can establish a small reference group of trusted organizations and individuals with whom they can review the information they are obtaining in the field. Such groups meet regularly but do not have a direct interest in the proposed direction of the programme or its intended outcome.

Collusion and Unreliability

There are times when it is in the interests of some people and organizations that educators have a particular view of the community. There may be a perception that the educator team has access to money that will be spent in the community, or that the educator team should develop programmes in a specific way that benefits the community or even a particular political party. If the educator team is comprised of outsiders, they may not even be aware that those they are interviewing are meeting one another and discussing implications of the programme amongst themselves.

Such collusion need not be undertaken in order to diminish the reliability of the information being provided. People have an interest in being considered intermediaries or maintaining their prestige within a community. They may not be willing to admit to areas of ignorance and may overplay their level of influence in order to impress the educator team.

Groupthink

There may also be a dominant view amongst those selected about local issues that doesn't entirely match the present reality. During transitions and crises, there are substantial shifts in conditions of reality, and organizations in particular cannot always keep up with these shifts.

Or there may be dominant political organizations and ideas that are taken for granted. These may be real. A single party may well have the support of all members of a local community. But in such positions of dominance, often it is easy for dissent to be suppressed and to become invisible. Of course, this raises the interesting proposition that members of minority support parties can also make claims that cannot be tested.

Gatekeeping

Finally, there are those who act as "gatekeepers" rather than guides. They control access to community information. Some are admitted to the community, others are not. And the reasons for this gatekeeping may be political, ideological, or personal. Educator teams will develop internal diversity in order to ensure that they are not kept out because they are all men, or all from a particular country, or of a particular cultural and ethnic background.

This alone will not prevent gatekeeping. But the development of an iterative approach can assist in overcoming it. In traditional societies, educators may have to be patient if they want to get through the gate. There is a range of strategies for dealing with this, but perhaps the most effective is the development of a relationship of trust with an intermediary who can introduce the educator to the traditional leadership.

Testing Information

Educators moving into situations where they suspect the information may be coloured by any of the above will be looking for reflective individuals who are willing to be fair to all political points of view and who can demonstrate the reliability of their opinions by pointing to supporting evidence. Or they may choose to conduct interviews that include members of the target audience directly on the basis of a small sample, just for verification purposes, rather than conducting a full survey.