by Antonio Spinelli

As the month-long voter registration campaign drew to a close, I asked my friend Sabah if he had registered. “I don’t believe in the value of my vote,” he replied. “Nothing will change, whether I vote or not,” he added, with a sense of resignation that nearly overwhelmed me.

An upper class citizen educated abroad, Sabah passionately believed that his vote would not make a meaningful difference. He simply couldn’t trust the system and institutions of governance in his country, despite the legislative and structural reforms that were underway at that time. He believed his only choice was to abstain from exercising his political voice.

Even though Sabah felt his remarks were justifiable, I was struck by his attitude. Perhaps I felt so uncomfortable because of the years I had worked to support and promote the values of democratic elections in various regions of the world—and because I believe in those values. Or perhaps because I had worked in many countries where the right to vote was not taken for granted but, rather, it was the result of long-term struggle and sacrifice by people who had been arbitrarily stripped of fundamental rights.

Whatever his reasons, Sabah’s perception of voting as an exercise in futility left a deep mark on me, so deep that, today, I still think of him and of his words.

Since then, I have been confronted many times by the question of how to reverse the spreading of the resigned attitude of people choosing not to choose. Why is voter confidence — and consequently voter turnout — relentlessly declining both in emerging and established democracies? How could Sabah’s confidence in the value of his vote be regained?

In looking for answers, and possibly for a solution, we have to step back a few years.

New Democracies and the "electoral knowledge gap"

While the aftermath of the Cold War was characterized by a sharp increase worldwide in the number of pluralistic elections, their meaning, value and legitimacy varied significantly from case to case. In addition, many electoral processes failed to provide citizens with a real opportunity to choose their representatives freely. A number of adverse factors worked to limit their voting opportunities, such as inadequate electoral frameworks, the inadequate or untimely funding of elections, a politically biased or unprofessional election administration, electoral fraud, unequal access to media, political restrictions, intimidation and violence, to name just a few.  

The widely varying electoral practices and standards of emerging democracies attracted unprecedented levels of attention from the world community, which began to address the conditions necessary to hold legitimate elections. As a result, emerging democracies saw a sharp increase in the demand for both technical electoral assistance and the required “stamp of approval” delivered by electoral observation missions.  

With the field of electoral administration growing dramatically and changing in its scope, in the 1990s, electoral practitioners found themselves confronted with new and complex challenges. In most cases, governments, political parties and governance bodies found themselves unprepared to go through democratic transitions that relied heavily on the holding of credible and competitive elections. Not possessing the necessary experience and knowledge to guarantee the fundamental conditions necessary for legitimate elections, many countries failed to respond appropriately to the emergence of these new challenges.  

The Erosion of Public Trust

At the turn of the millennium, a shift in the nature of these new electoral challenges turned the knowledge gap into a deficit of public trust in the election process. Elections in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan demonstrated—as never before— the importance of stakeholders’ confidence in the electoral process and the consequences when it is lacking. Public trust in the electoral process is crucial to its success because such confidence legitimizes the process and connects citizens to the institutions that represent them. 

Today, election practitioners and institutions face the significant challenge of rebuilding the confidence of key stakeholders in the electoral process—stakeholders such as the electorate, political parties, civil society, the media and observer groups. So how do we address the credibility problems emerging on almost all continents and the mistrust of  citizens like Sabah, who are resigned to the choice of not choosing? These problems can be solved by creating a more professional and sustainable electoral administration that, in turn, can promote enhanced credibility and strengthened public trust in the democratic process at large.  

The ACE Project: Meeting the Credibility Challenges

The Administration and Cost of Elections Project (www.aceproject.org) was first made publicly available in 1998 as a collaborative effort to help developing democracies address the gap in electoral knowledge. An electronic encyclopedia covering all aspects of election administration, the ACE Project initially encouraged the use of best practices worldwide; promoted transparency, accountability, professionalism and efficiency in electoral processes; and provided alternative frameworks and guidance to election officials and policymakers seeking to strengthen national electoral systems.   

Over the years, it became apparent that the ACE Project and its many resources represented an invaluable tool that could be employed to enhance the professional capacities of electoral practitioners to administer more efficient and credible elections. It also became apparent that, to effectively address the new credibility challenges, ACE had to be transformed into a more active and dynamic tool.  

The new ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, to be officially launched on May 4, 2006, is the result of a transformation that has taken the original ACE Project to an entirely new dimension, through a networking process that generates value from its intellectual and knowledge-based assets, maximizing the use, dissemination and application of such assets.  

This process is founded on the establishment of an electoral “community of practice,” a community of election professionals and practitioners from different regions of the world. Members of this group share common interests, professional responsibilities and goals, and have an instrumental role in implementing the three fundamental elements of the ACE  Electoral Knowledge Network, namely:  

• Knowledge generation: community members engage on thematic discussions, exchange knowledge and good practices, share technical and policy advice, develop new ideas, learn from each other’s experiences (about what worked, and what didn’t, in similar situations) and help one another;
• Knowledge sharing: the knowledge generated by the community is systematically acquired, organized and shared among community members and ACE users at large; and
• Knowledge application: the collected knowledge is adapted to be re-used in professional development initiatives targeting election practitioners and institutions in need, contributing to the increased professionalism of election administrators worldwide.

The concept of the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network is innovative and powerful, something that has never been attempted before in the field of election administration. The electoral knowledge generated by and disseminated through the ACE Project—as well as the application of its resulting principles—is likely to have a significant impact in decreasing the widespread public mistrust and disillusion affecting many of the world’s regions.

I hope this innovative project will serve to motivate my friend Sabah, along with others who think like him, to reclaim the indisputable value of their votes.

Antonio Spinelli is a senior program officer at the Electoral Processes Programme of International IDEA in Sweden and a member of the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network Project Team.