In less developed communities, effective use of available local resources for voting operations may require considerable sharing of responsibilities and resources with other state agencies. In such cases, care needs to be taken that the management of voting operations, as with other electoral administration tasks, is at arm's length from politically controlled civil service bodies. Wherever possible there should be a separation of premises, reporting systems, management control, and financial appropriations used for voting operations.

It is highly preferable that State agencies whose resources are used for voting operations are under formal, performance-oriented contract to the electoral management body for their services and be bound by the electoral management body's administrative code of conduct. (For further discussion of voting operations responsibilities, see Responsibilities to Provide Voting Operations Services.)