An assessment of national and local infrastructure capabilities is required to determine whether the quantities and quality of various resources that will be required to effectively implement policies and procedures for the election and the geographic areas in which they will be required.
A needs assessment also identifies whether these needs can be met from facilities currently available within the country and, if not, whether:
• voting operations needs can be modified to suit infrastructure capabilities;
• infrastructure can be augmented through domestic or international funding;
• any specific voting operations resource needs can be met only from foreign sources.
Electoral management body administrative staff uses a needs assessment of current national and local infrastructure vital for determining capacities in the following key areas.
Distribution and Transportation Facilities
To ensure the successful implementation of voting operations the reliable, secure, and rapid movement of large volumes of materials, equipment, and often staff throughout the whole election area is required. For example voting locations may not be in readily accessible regions and forward planning is necessary.
A detailed analysis of the following conditions is essential before realistic logistical plans for voting operations can be developed:
• the transport base - roads, railways, air routes, waterways, and their condition under various climatic conditions, and warehousing facilities;
• the transport stock- available land vehicles, air, and water transport units and their load and turnaround capabilities, reliability, economy, and maintenance facilities.
(For further discussion of transportation infrastructure issues, see Transportation Infrastructure)
Communications Networks
The coverage, reliability, and load capacity of available communication networks, and possible affordable augmentation, must be established before communications strategies for voting operations can be developed and finalized. (For further discussion of communications infrastructure issues, see Communications .The dispersed nature of voting locations, combined with the need to maintain communication with all these location during the voting period, will place a heavy peak demand on available communications networks. In addition to this, there will be requirements for administrative communications, communication with security forces, and, where used, necessary computer links.)
Production Facilities
The following factors are important when determining critical information such as the location of production facilities available and suitable for voting operations materials and equipment, as well as their production capacities:
• the style of materials and equipment design that will need to be adopted;
• realistic time frames for voting operations activities;
• lead times required for placing orders for materials and equipment;
• logistical requirements.
(For a discussion of materials and equipment production infrastructure issues, see Materials Production)
Use of Existing Infrastructure
Cost-effective administration of voting operations will involve using the facilities provided by available national and local infrastructure, to the fullest extent possible, while still meeting stated objectives. Given the interdependence of voting operations activities this may require an iteractive planning process--for example, amending materials design to suit available production facilities, which may affect production lead times and thus administrative timetables and logistical planning.
