The right to vote must be seen as the right to participate in public
affairs in a direct way. Free and fair elections can
not be undertaken without the proper verification that voters fulfill the legal
requirements to vote.. Voter registers must be seen as catalogues of
citizens who have a right to vote. Therefore, voter registers are
fundamental for any voting system, and for any electoral legal system. Usually
all the requirements that have to be met by citizens are established in the
Constitution. Electoral laws have to regulate, design, and update such
requirements (which have to be non-discriminatory). All the procedures
related to the voter’s registration have to be complete and inclusive.
Bearing this in mind, voter registers generate certainty and security and
have, therefore, a key role in establishing and consolidating a democratic
regime. As well, voter registers can promote more enthusiastic participation of
citizens within electoral processes. There is a general trend towards a more
sophisticated development of voter registers from a technical point of
view. Such a trend has to be consolidated by electoral officials and
political parties working together in order to generate public participation
campaigns aimed at all the people.
However, a voters register is not only important but also very
expensive. The registration of voters and the production of voters’ lists
usually represent 50% of the electoral expenditures as a whole. There are
many different things that affect such expenditures, among which the kind of
system used to register voters, the design of electoral identification, the
managerial abilities of electoral authorities, and the social, economic, and
demographic characteristics in each single country are important in order to
achieve a sound balance between the costs and the efficiency of voters registers.
In order to achieve such objectives, there are many different kinds of
electoral registrars. They can be grouped once questions as follows have
been answered: Is voting mandatory? What kind of electoral authority is in
charge? Registers can be mandatory, voluntary, centralized, de-centralized,
permanent, non-permanent, independent or dependent of higher electoral authorities
who are in charge of both creation and updating of the voter register. Among
such higher authorities are electoral authorities, demographic registrars,
civil registrars, and so on.
