The roles
and responsibilities of host countries in external voting programmes have
ranged widely depending on context, available resources, and the degree of
international interest and support. In most cases the duties and
responsibilities of countries hosting foreign electoral activity on their soil
are minimal, being confined to the role of facilitator rather than that of
organizer or implementer. While host countries can assist in the external
voting process, their role should not threaten the secrecy of the ballot or the
neutrality or transparency of the programme. It is critical that external
voting programmes be conducted without political or government influence or
interference.
The
following are some of the areas where host countries can play a role in
external voting programmes:
- providing and protecting data,
including demographic information;
- locating
suitable office space;
- ensuring freedom of movement
(of election staff, monitors and observers, party officials and voters);
- providing customs clearances
for election materials, including ballot papers;
- providing
permits;
- providing travel documents,
including visas;
- waiving any taxes or other
fees;
- assisting in the recruitment of
staff;
- providing
adequate security; and
- facilitating the deployment of
election observers, monitors, and political party agents.
Providing
data. A primary
role of host countries in external voting programmes has been to provide a
range of data and information to facilitate the process. Demographic data can
help with estimating the numbers of eligible electors and identifying where
they are resident within the host country, and can contribute to determining
where registration and voting will take place. Data on infrastructure within
host countries can also assist an external voting programme.
Data
protection. It is
essential that any data collected as part of an external voting programme be
protected. Ensuring data protection can be a critical component of the overall
programme, as the lack of adequate data protection can directly influence
turnout. Any information on individuals eligible to participate in the vote
that may come into the hands of the host country as a result of the external
voting programme should be used exclusively for the external voting programme.
These obligations should extend permanently beyond the expiry of any memoranda
of understanding (MOUs) or agreements signed by the host country.
Identifying
locations. In
addition to providing data, host countries can help by making public facilities
and similar premises available as registration and polling sites, or with
identifying suitable premises for election activities or for temporary office
space as needed. However, while host countries can help by providing
information, it is important that the country conducting the election make the
decisions regarding registration and polling sites. (In the Iraq case (January
2005), the United States emphasized that its role was simply that of a
facilitator and that it did not have any authority in deciding on registration
and voting sites.) The number and location of registration and polling sites
can influence turnout and possibly affect election results, particularly where
travel costs are high and are borne by voters themselves.
Freedom
of movement. Host
countries can help by facilitating and supporting the freedom of movement of
election staff, monitors and observers, political party officials and potential
voters. Such assistance can include the provision of multiple entry visas or
travel permits in a timely fashion. Additionally, host countries can ensure any
air, land or sea clearances or permissions necessary for the transport of
persons or materials related to the external voting programme. Host countries
may also subsidize travel costs or otherwise facilitate voters’ travel to
register and to vote.
Customs. Host countries can ensure that all
necessary customs clearances and permits will be provided for any equipment and
materials that may need to be brought into the country in order to conduct the
external voting programme. This can include waiving taxes or other fees.
However, in the case of the Iraqi external voting programme in Canada, Canada
did not recognize the facilitating organization, the International Organization
for Migration (IOM), as having any special legal status in Canada, and therefore
did not consider the IOM to be eligible for any visa waivers, immunity or
duty-free treatment. In fact, Canada
specifically held that any imported election material would have to go through
the normal customs clearance procedures.
Legality
of residency and documentation. In some cases there may be eligible electors who are undocumented or
residing illegally in the host country. The legality of one’s residency does
not affect one’s right to political participation: undocumented or illegal
residents in host countries have legal citizenship in their countries of origin
and the rights and responsibilities that come with that citizenship, including
the right to vote. However, the government of the country conducting the
election may wish to negotiate with the host country to ensure that
participation does not result in deportation or other potentially harmful
ramifications for individuals. Such risks could significantly affect levels of
participation, and could affect turnout unequally across sectors of a
population, thus threatening the legitimacy of the election in the eyes of some
citizens.
Points
of contact. Host
country responsibilities can include the appointment of points of contact in
relevant government offices to assist in the processes of issuing visas or
permits, customs clearance, providing security, and other matters.
Staff. Recruiting and training staff to
run election-related activities in host countries, including electoral
registration and polling, can be logistically and financially challenging.
While host countries can provide invaluable help by providing data to assist
with identifying and locating potential staff, the recruitment, hiring and
training of staff should generally be conducted under the direct supervision of
the country of origin or its designees.
In the case
of the 2004 Afghanistan elections, when external voting was conducted in
neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, the IOM, with a mandate from the Afghan Joint
Electoral Management Body (JEMB), recruited and trained international and
national core staff, community mobilizers, and registration and polling station
staff. Overall, thousands of staff were recruited, the majority of them (95 per
cent) Afghan nationals, and hiring policies maintained a gender and ethnic
balance at all staffing levels. Training was conducted in less than one week.
In the case of the 2005 Iraq
elections, a number of host countries paid particular attention to staffing
issues. Turkey,
for example, specified that any locally recruited staff must have clean
judicial records. Germany
specified that any staff must be subject to local labour laws.
Security. Ensuring security, in terms of
both the physical safety and security of participants, staff and materials, and
the integrity of the electoral process itself, is of critical importance.
External voting poses unique challenges in both these respects. Cooperation
between host countries and the country of origin is essential to ensuring that
the external voting programme is conducted in an atmosphere that is free of
violence, intimidation or coercion.
While there
are no clear standards or best practices in this highly sensitive area, it is
generally most convenient and cost-effective for the host country to provide
security during the electoral event. Other alternatives could be the use of
international peacekeepers (in appropriate situations) or the use of private
security companies. One of the most important questions when considering
security provisions is whether freedom and security can be guaranteed in external
voting programmes to the same degree as within the country of origin.
Agreements
with host countries generally include specific security stipulations,
particularly regarding registration and voting sites and the transport of
election materials. Agreements can specify support from local and national
police and security forces and can establish communications structures between
the host state and election administrators. Where additional training may be
required for the forces providing security, election officials and
administrators can make recommendations regarding training and observe the
process.
During the
external voting programmes in the 2004 Afghanistan
and January 2005 Iraq
elections, the host countries provided security for registration and polling
sites in most cases. They also assisted with providing security for the
movement of election materials. For Iraqis voting in the United States,
the responsibility (and costs) fell on local law enforcement agencies. The US
Government facilitated the provision of adequate security by informing state
and local authorities and encouraging them to work with the IOM, which ran the
external voting programme. In Germany,
the IOM was ultimately responsible for maintaining order at registration and
voting sites, while German security and order agencies were responsible for
maintaining security outside the locations where registration and voting took
place.
Preventing
fraud. One of the
most serious obstacles to external voting has been the view that it opens additional
avenues to fraud which can undermine the entire electoral process. Some
observers have argued that the introduction of external voting in countries
with a history of electoral fraud can undermine the public’s confidence in the
process and threaten the consolidation of democracy.
While
ensuring the integrity of the electoral process itself and preventing fraud are
generally the responsibility of the country holding the election, host
countries can help by guaranteeing certain safeguards to protect against fraud.
The host country may be able to provide invaluable assistance in this regard,
particularly in terms of sharing data.
Electoral
registration. The
conduct of the electoral registration is a critical component of external
voting programmes. The role of host countries in the registration process is
extremely sensitive and highly political, particularly where host countries may
have an interest in the outcome of the election or may have ethnic, religious
or other ties to the country conducting the election. While host countries may
have a role in the registration process, usually through providing demographic
data, it is important that protection is put in place to prevent foreign
governments from influencing the outcome of an election by screening the
registration process and thus ‘engineering’ turnout.
Even where
polling does not take place on foreign soil, timetables may make it necessary
to conduct electoral registration or other activities out-of-country,
particularly where time does not allow full repatriation of refugee communities
before registration takes place. In the case of the 1993 Cambodian elections,
Cambodian laws prohibited any electoral activity on foreign soil. As a
consequence, refugees were forced to return in order to participate in the
election. However, the repatriation of Cambodians from Thailand
progressed more slowly than had been expected, thus affecting electoral
registration timetables and jeopardizing the integrity of the electoral
process. In order to register returnees in time, the United Nations and the
Thai Government reached an agreement to allow most of the registration process
to be conducted in Thailand.
However, because Cambodia’s
electoral law did not allow for electors to register on foreign soil, electors did
not receive registration cards until they reached Cambodia. (For additional
discussion, see Gallagher and Schowengerdt October 1997 and 1998: 205.) In this
case a combination of in- and out-of-country electoral activity was devised to
ensure enfranchisement.
Information
dissemination: campaigning, voter information and civic education. Host government cooperation,
support and facilitation of the dissemination of information, including
campaign materials as well as voter and civic education, is critical to the
success of any external voting programme. In the Eritrean referendum of 1991,
for example, Sudan’s
cooperation and initiative were essential to the education of voters in refugee
camps.
Host
governments can help in information campaigns of all types by making available
local and national forms of electronic and print media, including television
and radio, for the purposes of the electoral process. When external voting is
being conducted in refugee camps, voter information and education should be tied
to existing communication systems, particularly those linked to refugee
priorities such as food and shelter.
External
voting also poses questions about whether external electors will have less,
equal or greater access to information than their counterparts in the country
of origin. For example, Bosnian refugees in 1996 had access to the
international press and other sources of information, while electors within Bosnia and Herzegovina
had access to more limited media. Administrators of external voting programmes
must consider whether differences in access to information might influence the
overall integrity of the process or the outcome of the election. These
differences become particularly important where one group of electors is
limited by its access to government-controlled or otherwise unbalanced media.
The
campaign period can be critical to an electoral process, providing potential
voters with essential information about the choices before them. Where
campaigning is allowed, host governments can help by authorizing candidates to
campaign within the guidelines of any codes of conduct that may exist. While
most countries do permit voter and civic education activities, it is not
uncommon for a country to prohibit foreign nationals from campaigning on its
soil. In the January 2005 Iraq
elections, neither Turkey
nor Canada
allowed foreign political parties to conduct election campaigns on their soil.
Campaigning
aside, the distribution of general political information is highly sensitive.
In the case of the 1997 Liberian elections, not only did host governments
resist external voting on their soil, but they also banned the dissemination of
election-related information within their borders. For Bosnian electors in
Croatia, the 1997 MOU between Croatia and the Refugee Elections Steering Group
(RESG), an ad hoc organization tasked with coordinating Bosnia’s out-of-country
voting, prevented Bosnian political parties from campaigning on Croatian soil
and limited the types of voter and civic educational materials that could be
distributed to small brochures in the Croatian and Serbian languages ‘in order
not to provoke other nationalities’ (Gallagher and Schowengerdt 1998: 202).
