Electoral legislation in some countries not only defines the powers and functions of the EMB, but also its responsibilities, or ‘obligations’. These would often include accountability measures, such as the requirement for audit or reporting on its activities to an external body such as the legislature.
The EMB's responsibilities may also include more normative elements of how it is expected to behave, which may be further elaborated in the EMB's code of conduct. Electoral legislation in Indonesia includes obligations on the EMB to provide a good service to all election participants and treat them fairly, determine and implement quality standards for election materials, maintain comprehensive electoral archives, inform the public fully of its activities, be accountable for its funding, and report to the president on the conduct of each election.
Even where not defined in the electoral legal framework, EMBs as upholders of democratic values have behavioural and access responsibilities to the community which they serve.
Some of these responsibilities relate to
- the probity and integrity of electoral management,
- others to issues such as transparency,
- gender balance,
- sensitivity to customs and traditions,
- treatment of ethnicity,
- providing electoral access to marginalised groups, and
- creating electoral conditions conducive to fair competition.
EMBs have overarching obligations to adopt good practice, so that their levels of integrity promote free and fair elections, their efficiency ensures that public funds are not wasted, and their service standards meet with public approval. If the best practice in election organisation could be easily identified, it would be the goal that electoral management bodies would strive to achieve. It is perhaps more realistic to aim to achieve targeted elements of good practice: this has the potential to straddle the barriers of the differences in electoral systems, and still achieve the delivery of free and fair elections.
