A significant area of electoral reform is the nature and structure of the institutions engaged in electoral management or delivering electoral services. Reforms in this area may enhance the independence of the EMB — for example, by adopting Independent Model electoral management in countries such as Bhutan and Tonga, or a Mixed Model as in Timor-Leste. Electoral responsibilities may be reassigned among existing and/or new bodies to promote better service delivery — as in New Zealand, Sweden and the UK. In Sweden, the EMB itself initiated the reform of electoral management. In Indonesia in 1998–99 and in the UK, the government initiated the reforms. Pressure from local civil society or international groups may also instigate the reform of electoral management arrangements, as in Georgia and Liberia.
Reforms of electoral processes, such as the introduction of a new electoral system, may have a broad effect on an EMB’s strategies, policies and procedures. They may target key electoral issues such as electoral participation and representation, the delimitation of electoral districts, voter registration, the registration and oversight of political parties, and improving electoral integrity. They may also target specific technical or technological aspects of the electoral process, such as introducing new procurement or employment processes, voter registration systems, or voting and vote-counting methods or systems. They may involve social policies, such as reducing a gender imbalance in representation, improving access to electoral processes for marginalized sectors of society or improving the representativeness of the EMB’s staff.
Electoral system reform, as in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, is one of the most far-reaching reforms in election administration. It is often the result of a functional need, for example, of perceptions of ‘unfairness’ in representation or of government ineffectiveness or lack of responsiveness. In 2003 Indonesia changed its electoral system from closed-list proportional representation (PR) in very large electoral districts to open-list PR in small electoral districts in order to address perceived deficiencies in the links between voters and representatives, while maintaining the consensus nature of Indonesian governance. Electoral system reform places a substantial information responsibility on the EMB, and may require it to implement new methods of electoral district boundary delimitation, voting and vote counting.
EMBs can play a significant role in reform of electoral district boundary delimitation, for example as advocates of more transparent and equitable boundary delimitation processes; by providing expert opinions on boundary delimitation issues; and by ensuring that they exercise any responsibilities for boundary delimitation impartially, equitably and with integrity. Some electoral reforms have introduced multi-member districts, as this type of system, usually based on PR, can decrease the influence of electoral boundaries on election results. Other reforms have required boundary delimitations based on ‘one person, one vote, one value’. Some reforms have attempted to make boundary delimitation processes more transparent and objective, for example by excluding the legislature from the delimitation process, placing an independent body in charge of delimitation, and requiring open hearings and independent review of proposed boundaries.
The process of registering electors has attracted many efforts at modernization in both emerging and established democracies. Voter registration determines the ability of eligible voters to participate in an election, and thus is a key element of the fairness of an election. As it generally occurs well before election day, and often outside the direct scrutiny of observers (especially where electoral registers are derived from civil or population registers), the internal integrity of voter registration systems needs to be very high. Reforms have increasingly targeted the efficiency, as well as the integrity, of voter registration processes. They have often included the introduction of biometric data capture and processing, with the stated aim of decreasing the scope for multiple registrations, voter impersonation and/or multiple voting.
Many EMBs have implemented systems to improve the inclusiveness, fairness, accuracy and transparency of voter registration, for example, by providing for continuously updated voter registration, special registration provisions for transient voters, and safeguards against the wrongful rejection of a registration or removal from the electoral register. EMBs and other agencies responsible for maintaining data from which electoral registers are derived are improving the integrity of electoral registers by using better methods to check the identity of qualified persons and reducing data processing times, often using modern technological solutions. EMBs need to ensure that technological solutions for voter registration enjoy citizens’ trust and are sustainable, especially in emerging democracies where EMBs may have uncertain levels of future financial support.
There have been significant reforms in the role played by EMBs in monitoring and regulating the activities of political parties. Some are the consequences of legal reforms targeted at levelling the playing field for political competition — for example, reforms in the administration of state funding of political parties and candidates’ election campaigns, and the qualifications for registering parties and candidates to contest elections. Others have been targeted at improving oversight of campaign contributions and expenditures, and the internal democracy of political parties — such as oversight of candidate selection processes. Reforms to promote a level playing field for elections have also given some EMBs the responsibility of administering or monitoring arrangements that require the media to allocate campaign advertising opportunities equitably.
A growing number of EMBs are introducing new voting methods. Brazil, India, Bhutan and Venezuela have replaced manual voting with EVMs, while Estonia has introduced Internet voting. Many of the issues that need to be considered in reforming electoral processes by introducing electronic voting are discussed in Chapter 9.
There have been significant efforts to make electoral participation more accessible. Access to voter registration has sometimes been opened to those who are out of the country, of no fixed abode or in prison. Access to polling has been widened for many people through the introduction of in-person absentee, postal or pre-poll (early) voting, including for voters who are out of the country, and by providing special voting and voter information facilities for refugees, internally displaced persons, the disabled, the aged and those in remote areas, in prison or in hospital. EMBs have had to respond to all these reforms by introducing procedures and systems that enable the additional access while maintaining high integrity in the voter registration, voting and counting processes. Internet voting is the subject of much current research, and poses a challenge to EMBs that might be contemplating its adoption, since the skill sets required to manage such a process are radically different from those typically found in EMBs that manage traditional voting methods.
It should be noted that reforms that give rise to a proliferation of different voting methods, or more generally to a range of different modalities for performing a particular function, tend to be more challenging for an EMB than ones that simply update a single mechanism to a different single mechanism.
Reform of electoral access has attempted in some countries to provide equal access for specific societal groups and for women. Such reforms may well have to be pursued in a complementary way in the legal, administrative and political areas. EMBs can promote equitable access by insisting on it in their own staffing, for example by requiring gender balance in temporary staffing for polling stations, and using internal professional development programmes to ensure that women advance into EMB management positions.
