Detailed planning is required for all voting operations activities if they are to be implemented effectively It is good practice to undertake a needs assessment before the development of work plans for particular aspects of voting operations (see Operational Work Plan).
A needs assessment assists in determining the overall requirements. It also provides the opportunity to identify the gap between resources currently on hand and what additional resources are required and where these resources can be accessed (see Infrastructure).
Operational plans for voting operations cannot be developed in isolation either from planning for other election operations or, most importantly, from financial and budget planning. Active co-ordination, with operations managers, and understanding of voting operations goals is required by financial managers.
(For further discussion of budget preparation, see Expenditure Planning.
Needs Assessment Role in Planning
A needs assessment that compares the structures and resources currently available with those that are necessary and contributes to the effective implementation of voting operations is the principal starting point A needs assessment deals with the systems and resources required in each local area.
This assessment may be more effectively undertaken at the local level (under central oversight) rather than from a central point.
Timing of a needs assessment is also critical for well-managed voting operations. For integrated and effective planning a needs assessment must take place at the initial phase of the planning process and thus, minimizes the danger of either wasting resources or having inadequate resource levels, distribution, or management which can lead to higher voting operations costs and possibly affect election integrity.
Basic Issues
A needs assessment encompasses two related functions:
• A corporate evaluation of systems, procedures, and management organisation to identify areas requiring additional action for effective delivery of voting operations services; and
• Identification of the overall resource needs for voting operations, and determining what additional resources in locations, materials, equipment, staffing, logistics, and communications will be required for all voting operations tasks.
Corporate Management Issues
The first issue addresses the current corporate structure, skills, and culture of the electoral management body, and any augmentation or change required to deliver effective management of voting operations processes.
Electoral management bodies can grow from a relatively small organization concentrated in a few locations to an organization with numerous and widely dispersed branches that include voting stations and large numbers of employees, i.e., polling officials. Effective augmentation of management frameworks to cope with these changes need to be identified.
In this respect the needs assessments will deal with issues as:
The configuration of voting operation management: Identify changes to existing management frameworks to provide effective management organizational structures, responsibility assignments, physical locations of managers, and chains of command to deal with the dispersed, localized nature of many voting operations tasks.
Control and supervisory mechanisms: Ensure that adequate reporting, monitoring and control structures are in place to cope with the expanded locations, staffing, and other resources. It is also necessary to consider what information is required to manage large numbers of voting stations.
Procedural frameworks for voting operations: Assess adequacy to effectively fulfill, in all envisaged circumstances, the requirements or the legal and regulatory framework for voting operations.
Coupling and complexity of systems: Frameworks for contingency planning and emergency response are required to ensure the ability to isolate failure in one part of voting operations so that it does not cause widespread collapse in related areas.
Corporate skills available: Assess appropriateness of available skills for the tasks to be undertaken and identify any additional training needs.
Communication channels--both formal and informal: Assess what needs to be established to ensure that information and instructions reach their intended recipients in a clearly expressed and timely fashion.
Appropriate management style: Determine the appropriate system for the delegation of decision-making authority to local or voting station level to cope with the expansion of the range of activities and the number of locations managed by the electoral management body.
Culture: Assess the team atmosphere and shared commitment to the principles of voting operations (see Guiding Principles of Voting Operations) present amongst election administrators. Consider and determine how these principles are instilled in additional temporary staff and external suppliers of services to the process.
Assessing the need for additional action to be taken in regard to the above points is as necessary as assessing resource needs. Without an effective management, procedural, communications, and commitment framework, available resources are not likely to be delivered and managed effectively or, at all.
Resource Needs Issues
The second issue addresses the actual resources needed to conduct voting operations effectively. The basic determinant of resource needs is the numbers of voters that need to be serviced in relation to the regulatory and procedural requirements for voting.
Assessments of tentative resource needs must be an early element of election planning, with fine-tuning occurring later as more exact data such as the number of voters and voting site locations becomes known.
Elements of the resource needs assessment include:
• equipment and materials required in electoral management body offices;
• staffing required for voting locations, the ballot count, and for election administration;
• the associated needs for staff recruitment, training, transport, and provisioning (see Recruitment and Training of Of Voting Station Staff);
• staff, materials and other resources needed for voter information programs to inform voters of voting locations and methods (see Voter Information);
• equipment required for voting locations and the ballot count--ballot boxes, voting compartments, furniture, facilities (see Materials and Equipment);
• materials required for voting locations
• any storage required for materials and equipment
• transport and distribution of voting operations equipment, materials, and personnel
• communications systems and equipment to enable effective information flow and to maintain security ;
• on the basis of risk assessments, requirements for security resources
• the locations for voting and counting sites must take into account any special voting facilities to be made available.
Standard Resource Allocation Profiles
It is important to have standard resource allocation procedures in place to allow these resources needs assessments to be conducted on a consistent, cost -effective, and less complex basis, especially with regard to such issues as:
• voting station staffing profiles
• equipment and materials profiles for voting facilities (see Materials and Equipment);
• voting site selection ;
• service levels to be provided.
Once needs have been determined, action can be taken to:
• identify where needs can be met from existing resources, either from within the electoral management body or from elsewhere;
• identify the additional resources to be acquired and the most cost-effective methods for doing this;
• develop work plans to ensure that all required resources are in place at the correct time.
A needs assessment includes an inventory of existing resources such as equipment, materials, staff, systems, and procedures, and their locations. Prepare such an inventory if current records do not already exist.
Use of Historic Data
Having data available from past elections is useful when conducting a needs assessment. Aside from data of electoral management body records of resource acquisitions and distribution, and management actions can be taken:
• evaluations and other reports on past election performance, detailing where changes to management structures, systems, procedures, and resource levels will increase the cost-effectiveness of voting operations
• reports from administration staff and voting station managers on performance at the last election
