In Australia, voter lists are automatically updated with civil registry information. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) divisional staff continually process enrollment information and enter it into the computerized Roll Management System (RMANS) in order to ensure an accurate and up-to-date electoral roll. This includes information about newly eligible persons, electors changing addresses, and deletions of electors who have left their enrolled addresses or died. The staff also process information received from Continuous Roll Update (CRU) activities and elections. Data matching programs undertaken in conjunction with other Commonwealth, state and territory authorities have also assisted the AEC in confirming enrollment details for approximately 43 percent of occupied addresses that can be enrolled without the need for direct contact with residents. The AEC also provides roll products for joint roll partners (state and territory electoral bodies), senators and members of Parliament, registered political parties, medical researchers, government agencies and authorities, and the public. The costs associated with the roll administration activities in 2003–2004 amounted to $58 million (a period leading up to the national election), and the estimate for the 2004–2005 financial year was $46 million.
In Sweden, the voter register is compiled on the basis of the civil register, which is continuously updated by the National Tax Agency, the organization that since 1971 has been responsible for keeping a correct civil register. Before every election, the central EMB acquires from the agency a complete voter register, which is extracted from the database containing the civil register. The central EMB pays the agency a fee for this information; the amount for the euro referendum in 2003 totaled 500,000 kroner ($64,000). The amount is calculated on the basis of the number of persons in the register, with the per-name being 2-5 öre (1 kroner = 100 öre). The central EMB receives the voter register in an electronic format and produces printed registers for each polling station. This is done with the use of statistics and maps provided by the Land Survey. The cost of dividing and printing the register by polling station is equivalent to 300,000 kroner. Additional costs (almost 13.5 million kroner) involve the printing and dissemination of voting cards to all eligible voters.
In Spain, lists of voters have a permanent automatic character. They are substantially produced and updated with information based on civil registries and lists of residents provided at the municipal level. Voter lists are handed to the provincial office of the Office of the Voter Registry and then compiled at a national level. Lists were updated on a yearly basis until 1998, when monthly updates were established. Lists of voters are distributed to the municipalities for a five-day revision period before every election. Following revision, the Office of the Voter Registry distributes voter lists organized by booth to each polling station. Also, voter lists are distributed to political parties, but not to the Ministry of Interior, which receives only aggregate figures of voters at different levels of government.
Costs related to the routine production and monthly update of voter lists are part of the ordinary budget of the National Institute of Statistics, which totaled 200 million euros in 2004. The costs are not officially quantified separately in the organization of the Institute’s budget, but could be more than 15 percent. In its turn, the Ministry of Interior includes all costs related to the use of voter lists at election times (13 million euros in 2004). These costs cover reproducing the lists to be handed out to political parties; postal communication to voters informing them of the reviewing period before every election and of their specific polling locations; and the management of external voting. This extensive outreach effort explains why voter registration-related expenses have shown the largest actual growth over the last five years. The Ministry must reimburse the Office of the Voter Registry for these costs.
Spain allows external voting by mail, both within the national territory and abroad (the 2004 voter list consisted of 34,557,370 individuals, of whom 1.1 million were voters living abroad). Voters from abroad are included in a separate list of absentee voters that is produced by the Office of the Voter Registry with information provided by Spanish consular offices. At election time, consular offices share management of the ballot abroad with the Office of the Voter Registry. Voters first apply for external voting at the consular office; then most of the ballots are mailed directly to the corresponding local electoral commission, and a smaller amount is handled directly by the consular office for remittance in Spain. All external ballots—including those from within the country—are supposed to be deposited at local electoral commissions within three days following Election Day since the official vote counting must take place on the third day. External voting operations have recently involved more than 600,000 people living in the country and 295,000 from abroad, amounting to 1.8 percent and 0.8 percent of the entire electorate, respectively. Voting abroad has continued to increase over time, while in-country mail voting tends to remain unchanged (Ramos Vadillo, 2003; Brugarolas Masllorens, 2003).
In Guatemala, voter registration costs amounted to 20 percent of the total electoral budget in 2003. The rising cost was due to a particularly complicated method of updating voter lists by which the voter lists and polling stations were split into two sections: updated and non-updated. The process of updating the voter register by allowing people to vote closer to their residence resulted in a split register—nonupdated voters and updated voters. This made the entire operation not only costly, but also created much confusion among the electorate. A technical problem while processing updated voter information produced an unknown number of legally registered voters who could not be found on the updated register but were still on the non-updated list; the problem stemmed from the fact that the electoral law states that citizens must vote in the municipality where they are registered. The assessment by the European Union Observer Mission concluded that a main liability of the electoral process was the failure of organizing voter lists when allocating voters to polling stations in accordance with the identification records previously given to the almost two million voters who had updated their registration or registered for the first time. This shortcoming was recognized as a major issue a few weeks prior to Election Day, but the problem could not be properly addressed by the national election commission. As a consequence, many voters were unable to exercise their right to vote even after the commission decided to allow for a tendered ballot in the first round for those duly registered voters whose names did not appear on the voter list of the corresponding polling station (EU EOM Report, February 2004). Despite recent efforts to improve the rate of voter registration, accounts continue to be received of actual, if not legal, disenfranchisement of certain populations (primarily rural residents and indigenous people). (López-Pintor and Gratschew, 2002, 37).
In Cambodia, voter registration costs in 2002 were part of the commune election budget and were close to $1.00 per registered voter. In 2003, the update of the list was also part of the electoral budget and amounted to $0.50 per registered voter; the update of a permanent registry in 2004 was estimated at $0.14. Therefore, this is a case where registration costs were lowered in comparison to the overall cost of elections, largely due to the establishment of permanent, automatically updated registries. The cost of voter registration operations for the commune elections included the production of photographic identity cards for each voter. The total voter registration operation amounted to 20 billion riels ($4.9 million), which was included in the electoral budget of the commune elections.
In 2003, Cambodia created a permanent voter registry based on the voter list used in 2002 for the commune elections. Registration operations were delegated to the commune administrations but were closely supervised by the National Election Committee (NEC). The operation was an update of the previous voter list: voters already on the list did not need to re-register. Only those who had reached voting age or who had moved from one commune to another were required to register. Under this new system, no voter card was issued. As a result, the total cost of voter registration amounted to 12 billion riels ($2.9 million) and was incorporated in the 2003 electoral budget.
In 2004, as required by the Law on the Election of Members of the National Assembly (LEMNA), updating of the permanent registry entailed an annual voter registration and revision of the list even if there were no upcoming elections. Voter registration and list revision are conducted between October 1 and December 31 of each year. Therefore, a new valid voter registry is generated each year. For these operations in 2004, the NEC prepared a budget of 3.7 billion riels that was approved and provided entirely by the government. This amount was not part of any electoral budget. In future, this recurrent expenditure may either be granted on an ad hoc basis as happened in 2004 or eventually be integrated in the annual functioning budget of the NEC. The cost of voter registration will likely continue to decline as the procedure becomes part of usual commune administration operations. In 2004, savings had already been realized on training and direct assistance to commune clerks.
Since registration operations are no longer conducted directly by the NEC, part of the cost is now indirectly absorbed by the commune councils, which provide the personnel. Although the financial burden of voter registration seemed to be ‘passed on’ to the commune councils, the NEC is bound to provide “appropriate training, capacity building, facility, supplies and materials and budget to the commune and clerk to enable the implementation of these responsibilities.” Regardless, these costs are already lower than those of a periodic registration. The NEC also provides salary supplement incentives to commune clerks for the additional administrative burden during the annual update period.
In Haiti, as in Guatemala recently, the voter registration operation for 2005 will be conducted with technical assistance from the Organization of American States (OAS). Of a total electoral budget of nearly $49 million, some $9 million will be allocated to the task of voter registration, which ideally will include the possibility of creating the basis for a civil register, still non-existent in the country. The overall voter registration process will be automated, and no manual registration will be made. All voters will receive a digital card that will gradually replace the national identification card. The OAS is planning to establish 615 offices for registration activities (400 registration centers, 185 automated registration offices, and 30 automated registration mobile units). The registration centers will be located in rural areas; the automated offices in urban areas; and the mobile units in the semi-urban areas. The number of automated centers will be adjusted as required to reach a larger number of potential voters. It is estimated that the registration process will take four months (March–June 2005). The concept of operations also provides for the establishment of approximately 3,200 polling centers. All automated registration offices will also be considered as polling centers, and voters will be advised where to vote during the registration process.
Haiti’s provisional electoral council and the international donors have approved this project, and the OAS is already implementing it.
The government will directly fund operating costs for approximately 82 staff at the electoral council’s central headquarters. Provision of $2,017,167 under this heading reflects the need to hire voter registration officers. According to the electoral law of 1999, each voter registration office should comprise a staff of five: a president, vice president, secretary, and two voter registration officials. The monthly salary of voter registration officers is approximately $111, while voter registration officials receive $97 for a two-month period.
Voter registration in Afghanistan prior to the 2004 election was particularly complicated and even hazardous. The actual size of the electorate was unknown, and identity card ownership was very limited among the population. Therefore, a nationwide registration exercise was implemented, resulting in what was regarded as a largely successful registration drive. Due to the security situation, all registration centers were required to have communications (satellite phones in most cases) and to be well protected and mobile. Much money was spent on acquiring thousands of vehicles, in addition to setting up the entire registration organization to run a computerized register. With a $74 million budget, the voter registration exercise was the single most expensive component of the entire electoral process. An additional $7.4 million was spent on registering refugees in Pakistan the week before the poll. Unfortunately, the voter register was never used in the polling stations on Election Day because voters were allowed to cast their ballots in any polling station in the country. The EMB has yet to decide how to turn the current voter register into a continuous voter registration process.
Next: Electoral cost management practices
