Voter information and broader democracy or civic education is a role that is increasingly being added to EMB functions. Some EMB legal frameworks have clearly provided for EMB conduct of voter information and education campaigns as in Bhutan, Cambodia, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and Tonga, while others, including Sweden, have not. Some EMBs have a wider remit to promote democratic values (Costa Rica), the democratic process (Lesotho), the purpose of elections (Ghana) and active citizenship (Costa Rica). Education efforts are often targeted at groups that are less likely to vote or face hurdles in participation. The Nepalese EMB has created an education centre based on the Australian EMB’s education centres. The Costa Rican EMB’s Institute for Training and Education in Democracy has a mandate to conduct relevant academic research, support the wider education system and incorporate new technologies in its work.
It is preferable for an EMB’s legal framework to include a voter education and information function, as this is indispensable for democratic consolidation, especially in emerging democracies. It is important for the legal framework to empower an EMB to conduct voter education and information campaigns in its official mandate in order to help consolidate democracy, since otherwise the government will be reluctant to fund such efforts.
However, it would be harmful for the EMB or any other body to be given exclusive voter education and information rights or powers to restrict who may educate and inform voters. Voter education and information is too important, and its implementation too complex, to be left to an EMB alone. Political parties, civil society, corporations and government agencies such as education systems may all have an important complementary role to play to help ensure that voters have all the information they need to make informed choices. An EMB’s voter education and information responsibilities could be partially or wholly delegated to other institutions, including CSOs. In Ghana, for example, the EMB is responsible for voter information, while its sister commission is responsible for civic education. The Thai EMB is empowered to outsource voter education and information to private organizations, while the Liberian EMB has guidelines for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in civic education.
EMBs have an intrinsic responsibility to ensure that their activities and operations benefit all citizens. This responsibility naturally entails targeting voter information campaigns to groups that may have traditionally experienced specific and disproportionate difficulties in accessing information and knowledge about their basic democratic rights and freedoms, such as the right to vote and the right to be elected. Women in many societies have traditionally been subjected to such forms of exclusion. Voter information campaigns are a particularly important tool to help eliminate barriers to women’s political participation and representation. In Senegal, in 2011 and 2012 in the wake of the adoption of important gender parity provisions in the electoral legislation, the National Election Commission organized a series of activities with the support of various national and international partners to raise awareness of the new provisions among prospective women candidates, as well as political party representatives responsible for monitoring the candidate nomination and registration processes.
