4.1 Comparative Assessment of Approaches
This section will provide a summary analysis of the approaches to measuring election quality described in the previous section and assess them based on a set of common questions. As with the review of approaches to measuring election quality this will not be an exhaustive assessment but will highlight several key elements to consider for all approaches.
Figure 3 classifies the approaches according to their strength as measures of electoral quality and their scope of inquiry. “Strength” is understood as the degree to which an approach follows a robust methodology, is focused on one or more aspects of an election, and includes a specific rationale for its findings. “Scope” relates to the degree of focus and detail related to electoral quality.
Table 1 provides a summary comparison of the approaches to measuring electoral quality described above against the following key points:
- The nature of the implementers
- Scope and focus
- Methodology for data collection
- Outputs
- Highlights of strengths/weaknesses of approach
4.2 Summary Conclusions About Approaches
4.2.1 Public Opinion Polls
Opinion polls of all types have value in that they report on a range of perceptions on important issues related to democracy and electoral quality. At the global level they may offer useful comparative insights and at the national level signal key areas of achievement or concern. Their specific value with regard to measuring electoral quality is relatively limited but they can serve as one of several tools that can capture important data about public perceptions. They may capture general public attitudes about democracy and the electoral process but also more specific feedback, for example, to a political party about how well their messages are being received by the public or indicate to an EMB that voter information is being disseminated and understood.
4.2.2 Democracy Assessments
Global democracy indices provide a macro and comparative perspective on the broad questions of democracy and governance. They also offer the confidence associated with numerical scores and ranking even if those scoring systems rely on a great deal of qualitative (and subjective) analysis.
While a score based on a numeric figure may provide the impression of a solid value, it should also be interrogated. An obvious challenge for any such framework is deciding on which factors to consider and how to weight them against the other factors included or excluded from the framework. The number of indicators included in a democracy survey (e.g. 10 vs 80) may also affect the level of detail and timeliness of the survey results.
A second challenge is the level of detail captured by the index. A generalized democracy survey may include measures of fundamental human rights and political freedoms, but relatively few specific measures of electoral quality.
National level democracy assessments hold more potential to provide in-depth measures of the strength of government institutions, the rule of law and operation of the judiciary, respect for individual political rights, the operation of civil society organizations and political parties and the like. However, it is possible but unlikely for a national democracy assessments (whether conducted by intergovernmental organizations, national governments, or non-governmental organizations and scholars) to offer detailed assessment of electoral quality or electoral actors. This may be a thematic area in which further work could occur.
It is notable that democracy and elections are key elements of so many intergovernmental and regional organizations. In terms of electoral quality, the value of either their EOMs or other forms of periodic review and assessment they may conduct rests with the degree to which they follow a clear methodology and commit themselves to holding one another accountable through follow up on reform and implementation.
4.2.3 Election Management Assessment
Post-election reviews by EMBs, election assistance providers, and national stakeholders hold a great deal more potential than is currently the case and if fully implemented by for example, not only the EMB but also the judiciary and other government structures they could serve as effective platforms for electoral reform. In the case of donors and election assistance providers, they can provide incentives for policy changes and improvements.
Certification is a tool used infrequently and only in special circumstances such as transitional elections in which an outside actor (e.g. the UN) is involved in a range of peacekeeping and/or state-building activities. The methodology for certification is thus highly contextualized and perhaps unsuited to broader generalization. It draws however on other existing methodologies used by other actors.
4.2.4 Election Observation
Election observation is subject to many variables that may affect its ability to render a clear and compelling judgment about electoral quality. EOMs require financial backing to mount a long-term, multi-faceted, comprehensive election observation mission with a sufficient number of observers to provide good country coverage.
There is a long and familiar list of criticisms of EOMs – too long to be detailed here – but it includes questions about the duration of missions, which parts of the electoral process they observe, what training is received by observers, how many observers are present and where they are deployed, what specific methodologies are used for data collection and analysis. The absence of a common set of practices or consistently used measures and use of a common set of openly defined indicators for quality also complicate the picture. Even where multiple EOMs share a consensus judgment, the comparability of their reports may be weak.
Many observer groups have responded with an effort to better systematize and to explain how they assess elections (re: Declaration of Principles for International Election Observers and Code of Conduct for International Election Observers and Declaration of Global Principles for Non-partisan Election Observation and Monitoring by Citizen Organizations).
Establishing a more formal community of practice enhances the credibility and transparency of election observation methodology and allows for more informed examination of its practices and means to improve them.
The use of international public law to inform awareness of a state’s international obligations and commitments to democratic elections adds greater rigor to efforts to assess the quality of elections from within a framework of human rights in which the obligations and terms have already been agreed by member states. It provides a set of benchmarks that can be pointed to objectively but they can only be applied when clear lines are drawn that link obligations to national law, practice and implementation through careful data collection.
Most EOMs do not score or weight the different constituent parts of an election nor do they explicitly state that one element – voter registration, for example – is more important than another (e.g. vote counting) and would predominate in the judgment of electoral quality.
While EOMs will assign an informal relative value to the different elements of an election, their methodology has generally avoided assigning weighted or priority values to these elements nor have they provided overall scores.
While a checklist may help an observer to follow the voting procedures and allow the EOM to ensure all observers are reporting on the same elements, arriving at an overall evaluation of the conduct in an individual polling station as well as the election overall continues to rely on a balance of observation and judgment. The use of electronic checklists holds promise to enable EOMs to capture more data more quickly and to subject it to a range of analyses (e.g. to correlate the presence of party witnesses with lodging of complaints and the polling station results).
4.2.5 Specialized Missions: Thematic Assessment / Expert Panels
Thematic assessment (conducted within or outside an EOM) can provide excellent focus and detail on key indicators of electoral quality and can prove to be a valuable tool for many electoral practitioners. A specialized or technical focus holds the strength of digging very deeply into one or more core components of an election. By the same token, such approaches are unable to comment on the overall quality of the election or areas outside its scope of study. For electoral assistance providers, donors, and beneficiaries such as EMBs, the findings of a technical or specialist mission can identify whether goals have been achieved, what worked and what might need to be changed for the next election. Finally, the findings of thematic and expert or technical missions can provide effective inputs to future policy development.
It is not easy to arrive at the conclusion that the will of the people was reflected in the results without the application of several forms of vote count verification and assessment of the relevant steps in the electoral process. A PVT is an important tool but may not be conducted in all elections. Moreover, a PVT will be unable to account for changes that may occur during the official tabulation (e.g. individual polling station results are disqualified in case tally sheets show signs of alteration, official tally forms are lost or damaged in transit, or there may be political interference by EMB officials or others).
Careful assessment and observation in practice of the legal framework and procedures to ensure that ballot counting is accurate and free from manipulation are needed.
