When a complaint is received or an alleged offence reported, a decision must be made whether to investigate. Important integrity issues are raised by the possibility of an investigation launched in response to a complaint that might be unsubstantiated or pursued for political ends.
To ensure integrity in the complaint review process and in the decision on whether to investigate, complaints would need to be reviewed in a professional and timely manner. Reviewing means examining whether a complaint is credible, whether there are grounds to think that a law has been broken and whether an investigation is likely to identify the offender.
Many countries have adopted standard procedures and criteria for determining whether a complaint is valid and should be investigated.
Valid Complaint
The following are some of the factors used to determine whether a complaint is valid and which agency has jurisdiction over the investigation.
Most systems have developed detailed procedures for evaluating a complaint, including a timeline for responding to the complainant.
Reasons for Dismissing a Complaint
In most systems, complaints may be dismissed for one or more of the following reasons:
Instead of being prosecuted, mistakes or “ministerial” errors (i.e., ones which affect purely administrative tasks and do not involve policy discretion) are usually handled through the oversight procedures of the electoral management body. An error that had a significant impact on the outcome of an election is usually challenged by a losing candidate through the complaints and appeals process.
Determining Case Priority
Policy also determines the priorities for investigation. It takes much time and effort to investigate allegations of voter fraud. Some investigative agencies do not have the human or financial resources to investigate every substantive complaint. Integrity issues may arise if there are no objective criteria by which to set priorities for investigation, with the task left to the discretion of individual investigators or officials responsible for enforcement. These may be suspected of “burying” cases likely to have political ramifications or of giving priority to cases that are relatively unimportant.
These types of integrity issues can be addressed effectively through monitoring and oversight of the enforcement process, as discussed in the subsection on Monitoring of Enforcement.
[1] Donsanto, Craig, “The Federal Crime of Election Fraud,” Proceedings of the Third Annual Trilateral Conference on Electoral Systems, IFES, op. cit.