Internal quality assurance programmes are the starting point for assuring an EMB and its stakeholders that EMB activities meet service, effectiveness and appropriateness standards. EMBs may wish to follow the relevant International Organization for Standardization guidelines and standards.
Components of a quality assurance programme may include:
- stakeholder consultation on new systems and methods;
- implementation of formally reviewed, benchmarked design and development processes;
- rigorous pre-implementation testing;
- comprehensive training programmes;
- ensuring that professional staff are qualified to be members of the appropriate professional associations;
- formal post-implementation monitoring programmes; and
- robust reporting of faults and rectification processes.
In relation to quality control, a specific matter requiring attention is identifying and preventing or mitigating criminal fraud (which may take the form of financial fraud aimed at enriching the perpetrators, or electoral fraud with the objective of manipulating election outcomes or compromising public faith in their validity). To develop and implement an integrated and comprehensive fraud control plan, an EMB will likely require input from the financial, operational and legal areas of the organization. It will need to carefully consider whether parts of the plan need to be kept confidential, since there is a risk that publishing fraud control strategies may help those who wish to circumvent them. It also needs to be borne in mind that mechanisms aimed at the total elimination of the possibility of fraud may have side effects, such as the suppression of voter participation, that are so undesirable that it is preferable to accept and manage some risk of fraud.
