Voting operations, as an activity that requires high quality performance across many widely-dispersed sites, depends for its success on the quality, integrity, sound judgment, and self-reliance of the staff employed.
Elections succeed or fail at the voting station level. It is vitally important, therefore, that sufficient numbers of motivated and suitably qualified staff are recruited, trained, and are subject to effective supervision.
Recruitment Responsibilities
Decisions will need to be made on who is responsible for recruitment. Possible recruiting methods would include:
• a selection process conducted by the electoral management body, either as a centrally controlled exercise or devolved to local management areas;
• nomination of staff from other state agencies;
• use of external specialist recruitment agencies to advertise and select applicants for acceptance by the electoral management body.
Where large numbers of staff are required, combinations of methods may need to be employed.
Recruitment Integrity
Integrity and accountability of the recruitment process will be enhanced by establishing recruitment procedures that:
• promote transparency through documented selection of staff on the basis of public criteria;
• avoid corruption and political bias in appointments;
• establish clear contractual obligations between the electoral management body and its temporary voting operations staff;
• Provide a basis for financial probity.
To promote integrity, it is important that all voting operations staff appointments are made by the electoral management body. Even where voting operations staff is nominated for appointment by other agencies or bodies, the final selection and approval of staff appointments should rest with the electoral management body.
Staff Qualifications and Standards
Staff recruited for voting operations functions must be capable of providing a procedurally accurate, efficient, and impartial service of high quality to voters. The criteria that persons must satisfy to be employed for voting operations, tests and standards should confirm certain basic qualities in a candidate, such as:
• impartiality;
• basic arithmetic accuracy;
• basic literacy;
• materials control skills;
• ability to communicate with the public;
• experience in a voting operations or similar environment;
• ability to follow procedures;
• ability to work accurately under pressure;
• positive attitudes to responsibility and service.
(For further discussion of criteria and standards for recruitment of voting operations staff, see Recruitment Standards.)
Community Representation
In addition to ability, impartiality, and attitude, recruitment criteria for voting operations staff should also promote the selection of staff who are representative of the community. This would require that staff be engaged wherever possible from the local area.
Additional measures may need to be taken to encourage employment of staff from minority communities, different language groups, and those who--through caste, gender, nationality, lack of employment history, or physical impairment--may often be overlooked for public sector employment. In elections held following intense inter-communal conflict, criteria may include a requirement that equal members of each community be appointed to all voting operations locations.
General Public Policy
Recruitment of voting operations staff must abide by government public sector policies on equality of employment opportunity or targeting of disadvantaged groups, such as the unemployed, for employment. This should be balanced with ensuring that they do not conflict with impartiality and integrity standards required of voting operations staff.
As a major employment exercise, recruitment of voting station staff can assist in broadening employment opportunities for population segments who may, in the social environment, lack other opportunities for employable skill acquisition.
This can particularly apply to encouraging the employment of women and in fostering local recruitment in lesser developed areas. Using voting operations recruitment as an agent of social policy or change may incur higher short-term training costs specific to the election, but may reap substantial and sustainable social benefits.
Numbers of Staff Required
The prime concern of the recruitment process is the timely recruitment of sufficient numbers of staff required for each voting operations function and location, including:
• temporary administrative assistance;
• voting station staff;
• staff for special voting facilities;
• counting staff, with careful consideration of whether voting station staff should be used for the count or whether additional staff should be engaged;
• staff for logistics and other support.
As with most other voting operations resources, the basic factor in determining how many staff will be required is the number of registered voters to be serviced. In determining cost-effective numbers of staff, consideration should include the following:
• the number of voting stations and other voting facilities to be staffed and the number of voters expected to use each of these;
• contingency staff reserves required;
• time frames and deadlines for completion of tasks;
• definition of particular staff roles and levels;
• cost considerations, particularly in situations where there may be a choice of engaging additional staff, with associated additional training costs, or paying higher rates in overtime to a smaller number of core staff;
• capacity for effective supervision;
• any general state policies that must be followed - for example in using temporary election staffing to provide some employment to large numbers of the generally unemployed.
Unless there is sufficient competent supervisory capacity, engaging larger numbers of staff may decrease the quality of service and output. The intended effects on speed of processing may be illusory. While recruiting the unemployed may not be generally cost-effective, or conducive to quality, this may serve broader social goals.
Staffing Models
Numbers of staff required can be most effectively calculated by using models of each phase of the operations--in terms of service standards, levels of service, activity timing--to develop basic staffing needs for each location and adjusting these for any specific circumstances at the local level.
This approach is preferable to an ad hoc approach. The numbers recruited should not only cover the defined staff needs, but should also include some allowance for contingencies, such as replacement of staff who fail to complete training satisfactorily or who are unable to work when required.
Continuity
Costs of training can be contained and service levels to voters enhanced, if there is a commitment to retaining the services of experienced and competent voting operations staff who have been employed at previous elections. At the very least, this will require maintenance between elections of accessible records and data bases of staff appointments and performance evaluations. Additional measures may also assist in staff retention, such as:
• encouraging voting operations staff to advice of changes of address; voting station staff experience could also be tracked in voter registration information.
• regular communications with voting operations staff through newsletters. This can assist in future training by providing news of changes in voting frameworks and procedures. It can also enhance staff motivation by communicating to temporary staff that they are valued members of the electoral management process.
• judicious use of incentives, such as promotion to more senior voting station staff positions, employment in other electoral activities such as voter registration, or possibly even retention bonuses.
Staff retention will be an easier task where there are permanent bodies with electoral management responsibilities. To maintain records on all staff employed can be an onerous task, particularly where computerised staffing records are not available. While this would deliver the maximum benefits to service enhancement, it may not be possible to maintain continuous records for all staff in environments where capacities are very limited.
It is crucial that efforts are made to retain the services of voting station managers and other senior voting station staff who have satisfactorily performed supervisory responsibilities. Without this core of experienced staffing, the already heavy training and management burdens will be increased, and voting operations performance is likely to suffer.
In some jurisdictions, strict employment preference is given to those with previous voting operations experience. Where adequate records of former staff and their performance exist, this is a cost-effective method of recruitment.
However, voting station staff who have not performed satisfactorily should not be re-employed.
Such a policy needs to be applied flexibly, so as not to exclude new workers with better skills and ability. Giving strict employment preference to those with voting operations experience will not be the appropriate recruitment methodology in environments where there have been major changes to the right to vote entitlements or where past recruitment practices have been discriminatory.
