Voter registration is one of the stages at which there are significant opportunities to manipulate election results. For this reason special efforts are made to ensure that the voter list is accurate and reliable. Accuracy in this case means that all eligible voters are listed; they are listed only once; and only eligible persons are listed.

Creating and maintaining an accurate voter list requires internal safeguards as well as a system of cross-checks. It is vital to keep lists up to date, and to eliminate duplicate registrations, names of voters who have moved out of the electoral district or lost eligibility (such as the deceased, incompetent or those who have had their voter rights suspended through a criminal sentence). Equally critical to maintaining electoral integrity is close monitoring and enforcement of the relevant voter registration procedures.

Ensuring Only Eligible Voters Register

Political parties and candidates often go to great lengths to ensure that their supporters register to vote. They may offer incentives, such as transportation to registration sites or promises of benefits for the area should they win the election. Some parties and candidates may wrongly go so far as to encourage people to register in an electoral district where they do not reside, or to register despite not being eligible to vote.

Some persons who are not citizens or are under age may try to register. Others may try to register more than once. Most systems deter and prevent such abuses by requiring registrants to show proof of identity or citizenship; this is particularly common in countries with a lack of trust in the electoral process or a history of voter fraud. However, integrity may also be at risk if the need to prove identity becomes so burdensome that it turns away potential voters. This happened during the 2003 legislative elections in Cambodia; people wishing to register had to produce several identification documents and pay fees to obtain them.[1]

These problems can be avoided by requiring voters to show documents that they should already have or that are easily available, such as a national ID card, birth certificate or passport. There should also be alternatives for people whose papers were destroyed in war or never issued by the government. For example, in the 2000 elections in Haiti, two registered voters could vouch for a third person without papers. The registration numbers of the two guarantors were noted on the voters list and they were held responsible for the truthfulness of their guarantee.  Similarly, in the Liberian national elections, 2005, voters who lacked other evidence of eligibility could be registered based on the attestation of a village chief or clergyman.

Voter Registration Cards and Accuracy of Lists

Most countries have a list of people registered to vote. Since it is used on election day to determine who can vote, the list must be accurate and protected against any tampering. Along with recording names on the list, some systems issue a card to each voter upon registration. The card proves that the person has applied to register and that the application has been accepted. Typically, the voter must produce this card at the polls in order to vote. 

In some places (such as Romania), the card or another form of voter identification is endorsed, showing that the voter has voted in an election.  This helps prevent multiple voting, but may subject voters to pressure from various authorities (including local officials) if they have not voted.  If an endorsement of identification is provided for, it should be limited to a voter card and not another, general-purpose identification document.  Also the card should be designed in a way (such as laminated on the front side but untreated stock on the reverse) so that it can be endorsed with a permanent mark.[2]

Voter cards are an integrity safeguard. For the cards to be effective, they should have security features deterring unauthorized use or forgery. For example, serial numbers may enable electoral administrators to track cards. If registration fraud is a major problem, special paper may be used to make the cards more difficult to forge. In some systems, the card bears the voter’s digital fingerprints or photograph, and these also appear on the voters list.

Before electoral reform in Mexico, the voters list was largely used to manipulate election results. That is why one of the 1996 reforms sought to make the list accurate. For example, fingerprints were added to voter cards to reduce the potential for multiple voting.[3]

Voter lists should also be numbered in an ordinal or other sequence so that electoral authorities can track them and check whether any are missing. If the voter list is compiled based on civil registration data, then – in order to protect the privacy of the voter – the voter’s civil registration number should not appear in any published list.

Lists may be produced in duplicate or triplicate, with one copy for the local election office, another for the regional office and a third for the national office, as applicable. This practice can deter internal tampering, such as unlawfully adding or removing names, since it would be hard to make the same changes to each copy of the list.

A copy of the voters list is usually posted in a public place so that citizens, political parties and monitors can check the names it contains. The electoral calendar often sets a time frame for inspecting and making corrections to the lists in order to rectify mistakes or remove the names of ineligible persons. Individual voters should by all means have the opportunity to conduct their own registratio, and are also commonly enabled to confirm the registration of their families and residents of their property. Candidates, political parties and national observer organizations can also inspect the lists, and electoral participants should have the ability to seek corrections if necessary.

Monitoring

Monitoring of voter registration by a large number of domestic and international observers as well as political party monitors is an effective deterrent to the types of fraud and manipulation most common during this phase of the electoral process. Individual citizens may also play a role in helping to ensure accurate registration by looking at posted lists and pointing out or even challenging the registration of persons they believe are not eligible. In New Zealand, for instance, every office of the Registrar of Electors has a copy of the entire national voters list, and each post office has a copy of the local list.[4] The lists are open for public inspection. Similar methods are used in most countries.

Enforcing Registration Law

Enforcement of registration rules and anti-fraud provisions helps maintain a clean and accurate voter list. It is illegal to falsify voter lists in almost every electoral system. Offenders usually face prosecution.  In some countries, such as the States arising from the Former Yugoslavia, there are also provisions in law penalizing officials who willfully fail to register voters or otherwise deny their electoral rights.