Electoral costs do not tend to decrease overall once civil conflict and severe political turmoil have been overcome, although some line items of expense may prove to be more sensitive than others to cost-cutting measures. In other words, stability is much less expensive than civil conflict, but it cannot be taken for granted that electoral costs will decrease once democracy is stabilized and a state administration continues to develop. There are no grounds to expect that such massive processes as voter registration and voting would not be subject to the same challenges and expectations as other undertakings by a modern state administration (i.e., tax collection, educational services, postal services and communications).
There are more countries where electoral costs have increased during the last five years than those where costs have decreased. In about half of the countries, the budget was merely inflation-dependent and did not change in substance. The case of Switzerland, with a constant electoral budget over the last five years, illustrated this situation. In contrast, Canada, Spain and Sweden experienced high budget increases due largely to automation of voter lists and early transmission of results, expansion of postal voting, and intensive voter-information activities.
Although second- and third-generation elections following civil conflict tend to cost less than the first post-conflict elections, there are cases showing the opposite trend. In three Latin American countries (Nicaragua, 2001; Ecuador, 2002; Guatemala, 2003) later elections were more expensive than earlier ones.
Electoral expenses showing the largest growth tend to be for personnel and professional services. Sometimes this occurs following the establishment of an increasingly consolidated electoral administration, as in Cambodia and Guatemala; at other times, it stems from outsourced professional expertise in computer and telecommunication fields, as in Australia, Spain and Sweden. Voter information and postal voting are other expenses experiencing growth, especially in well-established democracies where sophisticated voter-information efforts offer individualized notification of date and place of the polling. For example, in Switzerland, voter information accounts for as much as 50 percent of the entire electoral budget. According to the survey response from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), the areas of operation experiencing the greatest increase in costs related to upgrading the AEC Web site (developing the ’virtual tally room’), administering a 40 percent increase in the volume of postal voting, and also administering the increased volume of overseas voting together with attendant security issues.
Postal voting within country and abroad is becoming increasingly popular, yet is quite expensive. In Spain, for example, the cost per registered voter grew from $2.1 in 1996 to $4.1 in 2004. While reporting and accounting factors may explain a large part of the growth, there is still considerable room for actual cost increases, which can be explained by significant changes in the management of the electoral process. In any case, cost increases have been much larger than the 10 percent increase in the number of eligible voters from 31.4 million in 1996 to 34.5 million in 2004. Some of the discrepancy is related to the change in Spain’s currency from the peseta to the euro as well as the fall in the US dollar’s value against the euro over the past couple of years. These external factors are responsible for the estimate that at least 25 percent of the current cost per registered voter should be considered ‘inflated’ by mere accounting factors; taking this into consideration, the actual 2004 cost is $3 per registered voter.
Other factors are also responsible for the higher costs in 2004 compared with 1996. The major significant changes in the management of elections in Spain over those eight years included:
- A dramatic increase in the number of registered voters abroad for whom electoral material was mailed and processed (1.1 million people), plus other mail services to normal voters. Moreover, information facilities to electors in and outside the country were improved (i.e., by providing online information). This explains why the largest single line item in the most recent election budget was postal and telecommunications expenses, which accounted for over 21 percent of the entire budget;
- The increasing volume of printing and mailing by the Office of the Voter Registry accounted for approximately 13 percent of the electoral budget, the largest growth item in the budget. This increase resulted from higher levels of external voting; and
- Rapid transmission of preliminary results on election night. This activity has been improving technologically over time and now accounts for almost 10 percent of the total budget.
In Sweden, the cost of technology and Web communications is fairly high due to the large investments that have been made. In addition, most of this work is done by consultants instead of permanent staff—yet another reason for the high cost. Voter-information efforts are mainly focused on the production of a magazine in 14 different languages (in addition to Swedish); placing information on the official Web site; producing brochures; and advertising on television and radio. Brochures and films in sign language and Braille are also produced. The cost for voter information is around 18 million kroner ($2.3 million) for each general election; this number increased by 60 percent between 1998 and 2002. Before the election to the European Parliament in June 2004, the central EMB participated in the government’s Democracy Campaign by organizing information seminars for representatives from municipalities, organizations, government agencies and schools. The authority focusing on schools included information brochures in its general dissemination plan. The central EMB is prepared to develop its information activities further before the general election in 2006; among the suggestions additions are the preparation of special information packages for schools and immigrants.
Special investments in new technology and Web-based communication have been made in recent years in Sweden. To fund them, a relatively high annual budget has been granted to the central EMB. The cost of IT support and technology in 2002, more than 20 million kroner, was almost double its usual cost. The new technology is mainly used to produce a voter register, assist in accurate boundary delimitation and in managing election results. In addition, election results are published electronically immediately after the close of polls on Election Day.
Some countries show dramatic reductions in electoral budgets. The case of Cambodia looks spectacular because the first elections were held as part of peacekeeping operation in 1993 and had an exceptionally high cost—nearly $46 per registered voter. Subsequently, the cost dropped to $5 in 1998 and to $2 in 2003. Expense-line items undergoing the greatest reductions in recent years include staff savings (Canada), voter education (Australia) and voter registration after establishing a permanent registry (Cambodia).
In other countries such as Spain, however, no significant cost reduction was noted from one election to the next—although in the longer term a number of cost-reducing measures have been singled out. Spain’s electoral authorities have gained experience over the past 20 years with a number of cost-effective measures:
- Considerable savings have come from the decentralized printing of ballot papers since the late 1980s (party lists are different in each of the 52 provinces), and by widening the bidding to a larger number of firms. Savings of 50 percent or more have been reported, moving the cost from 1.6 pesetas to 0.60 per ballot, a savings of around $2 million per election;
- The cost of voter-information campaigns was reduced enormously in the early 1990s by limiting campaigning to the state-owned media where airtime is free. Expenditures were reduced from approximately $13 million to around $1 million;
- As indicated above, decentralizing the procedures for the preparation and application of the budget, and making each agency formally accountable for its own budget and accounting, appears to have been cost-effective; and
- The electoral authorities conducted a study on the feasibility of substituting disposable ballot boxes for the currently used hard plastic boxes. Savings on storage costs, as well as on some production costs, are expected as a result; currently, about 30 percent of all boxes are unrecoverable after an election regardless. This type of cost-effective measure has already been introduced in other countries like Australia.
The expenses that remain constant vary greatly among countries. Examples include fees to registration and polling officials in Canada or Guatemala; training in Australia; general voter-information campaign by the EMB (Spain); voter education (Cambodia); and every single budget line item (Switzerland).
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