There are a number of situations in which elections are conducted in the absence of existing voter education organisations. As a result, it may be necessary to establish, either within the electoral authority or in parallel to it, an organisation that has the specific purpose of conducting educational programmes for the election. Such an organisation may have a short life span and, like many election specific organisations, may be established for one election only. Certainly many election authorities do operate on a "balloon" system, maintaining a small headquarters and expanding only as appropriate. There is also the possibility that the election management authority itself is a temporary body comprised of seconded and short term personnel that will be disbanded once election results have been announced and the winners certified.
At the same time, there are many on-going educational programmes in existence and some election authorities and NGOs may have a mandate, either legal or pronounced through incorporation documents and mission statements, to conduct both voter education and broader civic education activities between elections. In those contexts elections have become institutionalised and, where civil society organisations have become as much mediating institutions in the political realm as political parties, it may be possible to conduct a continuous voter education programme in support of registration and elections. At the same time, there will likely be situations where some sort of new organisational arrangement needs to be created for a specific election and the effort required to create it should not be underestimated.
Forms of Organisation
This effort will vary in magnitude and type depending on the organisational form that is adopted. And this form will inevitably be chosen in part because of objective conditions (the context, available resources andthe programme purpose) and subjective experience (the background of the individuals concerned, their organisational experience, the advice they are able to get, and so forth).
In a perfect world, organisational form may be chosen solely due to objective conditions and it may be tailored specifically and efficiently to meet these. It is more likely, however, to result from the exposure that people have had to similar forms in other countries and to their own history of organising. If it were otherwise, there might be less need to manage organisations and less need for organisational, development, or management specialists.
It is possible to list ways in which people have organised themselves and suggest some of the consequences of such forms of organisation:
- Voter Education Organisations
The ease with which such organisations can be established will depend upon a country's legal and political culture. In countries where it is relatively easy to create such organisations, they may be established to obtain contracts from an election authority or they may have identified a gap in a market for training events or materials. In a number of cases, international funding for voter education may also have stimulated the creation of organisations explicitly dedicated to the conduct of voter and civic education programmes. All such organisations will inevitably have to deal with the normal difficulties of establishing themselves, from creating boards of directors, registering, recruiting and employing staff, and finding premises, to establishing a niche in the market. If they are forming themselves on short notice, they may well have more ambitions than capacity at the start. But they may have the financial backing to come up to speed quickly and to buy existing expertise and information.
The main difficulty faced by such organisations is the very narrow band of operation they set themselves and the subsequent difficulties they have sustaining their activities between elections and, possibly, sustaining their organisation in the longer term. A founding election may well provide a ready market and abundant funding. But a second and third election may find the responsibility for voter education shifting to an election authority, or the educational needs of the electorate changing or diminishing, Although there will be a need for some sort of voter information and education even if on varying scales.
The need to be able to deliver a national programme at short notice makes the expansion and diminution between elections a major challenge that requires an organisation with a professional core and a large pool of volunteers. An alternative model is an organisation that has a broader information, education and training, advocacy, or watch-dog function to sustain it. This usually allows an organisation to set up a special voter education unit at the time of elections or to transform itself into such an enterprise for the occasion.
- Organisations Working Together
It is unlikely that a single organisation can handle all the educational tasks that need to be undertaken during a voter education campaign. For their part, election management authorities will want to develop civil society capacity in order to increase the reach of their programme and also to enhance the general democratic atmosphere in which the elections take place.
Within civil society there may be both large and small organisations intent upon providing voter education. Larger organisations may run their own educational programmes and will likely have the capacity to interact directly with the electoral management authorities. Through this interaction, they can ensure that the activities of their organisation are complementary to those of any official programme. There will be many smaller organizations, organisations. However, for one reason or another, the need to work together in a more organised fashion will be to maximise resources and coverage. There are a number of reasons for working together. One can:
- achieve economies of resources,
- overcome prejudice by one or other of the candidates or the statutory authorities, and;
- utilizeutilise a variety of skills needed from different organisations.
In any of these cases, there are two organisational options open to organisations that do not want to operate through a single entity and subcontracting relationship.
The first option for working together is the stronger: the development of a consortium of organisations in which an exclusive group develops organisational protocols and a common identity for the purposes of the programme.
Organisational style: Typically such consortia will establish internal organisational principles and management tools that enable them to share resources and manage internal administration and external relationships including contractors. They may consider that the consortium has a life span beyond a simple programme, or they may have established the consortium for a set of agreed programme objectives.
Outside influence: In many cases, consortia form because of external influences, such as a request for competitive bids (tender advertisement) or a donor announcement of possible funding. The prospect of programme funding can be used by election authorities or donor agencies to encourage the creation of consortia in situations where it seems obvious that such forms of organisation are more suitable. It may be that there has been competition, for example, between organisations in a region or local area that is resulting in confusion amongst voters. Or there may be a limited amount of money available for a programme, and the donor wants to stimulate civil society development.
Disadvantages: There are disadvantages to consortia. Usually they take a long time to establish, . If formation is rushed, it is likely that they will have organisational dilemmas that could take energy and time to solve. Unless the protocols and working agreements are carefully crafted and the organisations in the consortium bring different skills to the table, there can be conflict among the partners. This same conflict can emerge if organisations have entered the consortium out of a sense of panic over their survival, rather than out of a strategic sense that the consortium will increase their effectiveness. In transitional situations where there is a remarkable upsurge in civil society organisations followed by competition for apparently limited resources, this last disadvantage can be a particular problem.
*Coalitions
Coalitions are the second option: they tend to be larger and more amorphous. Coalitions will normally have a very clear set of goals, but these may be social rather than programmatic goals. The organisations in the coalition will retain a substantial amount of autonomy and may consider the coalition only as an opportunity to share knowledge and information and to coordinate separate activities.
Organisational issues: Because of the social nature of such organisations, there is likely to be a firm protocol about managing public statements and about negotiating with external bodies. There is also likely to be a secretariat that convenes regular meetings of all the members or various subgroups of the membership. For these reasons, it is possible to develop a strong relationship between election management authorities and such coalitions as far as information sharing goes, but it is much more difficult to develop detailed programmatic collaboration. Indeed, it is likely that such detailed programmatic collaboration will be done with individual organisations or subsets of the coalition.
Advantages: Because of their social goals, however, coalitions can provide very useful civil society or independent activities in support of the election. Election management authorities and voter educators can exploit these features. Coalitions can provide independent monitoring, distribution of materials and messages to very large networks of supporters and members, recruitment of volunteers for various election tasks, and identification of skills and resources. They also provide a sounding board when developing messages and programmes. They may well provide early warning of conflicts or generalised complaints from voters.
