An EMB is an
organization or a body that is legally responsible for managing some or all of
the elements essential to both the conduct of elections and direct democracy
instruments. These core responsibilities include planning voting operations,
determining who is eligible to vote, receiving and validating the nominations
of electoral participants (for elections, political parties and/or candidates),
conducting the balloting, counting the votes, and vote tabulation.[1] An EMB may be a
stand-alone institution or a unit within a larger institution that has a
broader mandate.
There are three
broad electoral management models—independent,
governmental and mixed. No matter which model is used, however, it is of the utmost
importance that an EMB can ensure both the credibility of the electoral process
and legitimacy of election results. This can be done if electoral management is
constituted and operates under the following fundamental guiding principles: independence, impartiality, integrity, transparency, efficiency,
professionalism and service-mindedness.[2]
If any of these
constitutive principles are lacking, the EMB’s work may generate further concerns
and chaos that can in turn lead to outbreaks of election-related violence.
Empirical cases:
- Nigeria
parliamentary and presidential elections 2007. During the 2007 elections Nigeria experienced
widespread violence resulting in the deaths of 200 people. According to a
number of observers the election was marred by deficiencies in their official
organization, along with allegations of vote rigging and other electoral
malpractices. Immediately following announcement of the result protesters took
to the streets and demonstrations were subdued, often violently.[3]
Interrelated factors: human rights violations (external);[4]
problematic election day operations (internal);
insufficiency, destruction and loss of sensitive and non-sensitive materials (internal); problematic ballot counting and result tallying
(internal); unequal media access and favouritism (internal); rejection of the election results (internal); presence of non-state armed actors (external);[5]
poor socio-economic conditions (external).[6] - Albania parliamentary elections 2013. The
Central Election Commission (CEC) is composed of 7 members: 1 chair, 3 incumbent
party representatives and 3 from the opposition. In the election runup the CEC
was paralyzed by the resignation of its 3 opposition-nominated members. Failure
to find a solution impacted the CEC’s functioning along with the overall
organization of elections. First, it gave the impression that the CEC was
politically oriented. Second, regulations necessary to ensuring the
transparency of elections were not adopted or implemented, which gave rise to a
number of questionable practices during the runup. Third, and most importantly,
because it did not reach the required five-member quorum, the CEC could neither
legally consider complaints against results, adopt the results nor allocate the
mandates.[7]
This led to significant delays in the announcement of results, as a consequence
of which both camps initially announced victory. This in turn fuelled tensions
between supporters of both camps, including a shootout in which one opposition
activist was killed.[8]
Interrelated factors: An inadequate
system for the resolution of electoral disputes (internal), human right violations[9]
(external), Problematic vote counting
and tallying of the results (internal),
Poor management of the election results (internal).
