No EMB can justify or afford to permanently maintain the number of staff needed for all polling stations (which in a country such as Indonesia require over 4 million staff). Efficiency considerations may also preclude the permanent maintenance of secretariats or subsidiary EMBs at regional and local levels, or the full permanent staffing of functions that are only needed during an electoral period. For governmental EMBs under the Governmental and Mixed Models, much of the management structure for major electoral events may be based on temporary appointments or made up of staff seconded from other areas of the public service. Temporary EMB secretariat staff are often not recruited long enough before elections, or stay long enough after elections, to be trained thoroughly for their work.
Each EMB needs to devise appropriate strategies to promote the effective use of temporary staff. These strategies could include timely recruitment processes; measures to ensure the availability of experienced temporary staff for each electoral event, such as the payment of availability retainers; and measures to maintain contact with temporary staff between electoral events, such as databases of contact information, newsletters, reunion meetings or refresher courses. Such measures can be particularly appropriate for EMBs in countries without fixed intervals for elections.
This type of approach is not possible, however, for an EMB such as that of Mexico, where temporary polling officials for each election are chosen using a lottery system. Significant lead times, and a very well-funded recruitment and training effort, are then essential.
