Observing
external voting may be difficult both because of lack of transparency in the
process and because of lack of resources to be able to collect first-hand
information from a wide geographical area. Observation may therefore in some
cases be limited to the overall assessment of the conditions for external
voting, or to parts of the processes.
The
political conditions for external voting should always be assessed. If the very
fact that external voting is permitted is controversial, it is likely that
general trust in its implementation will be low.
External
voting will always be less transparent than in-country personal voting in
polling stations. Voting outside controlled environments will be less easy to
observe than voting in controlled areas, and e-voting will produce fewer audit
trails (such as ballot papers). Therefore general confidence in the EMB and the
election administrators is the first criterion for observers to assess when
observing external voting.
Should such
confidence not be in place, it is difficult to create it by observing the
elections. Even if part of the process can be checked, it is difficult to
ensure that the process cannot be manipulated by insiders. However, if there is
general trust in the intentions of the election administrators, some parts of
the process are possible to check and can be observed. They include:
- the registers of external
electors;
- the validation of the voters;
- the content of the ballot
material used for postal votes, and the manner in which the return of
voting material is checked for correctness and against impersonation;
- the way an e-voting system is
procured and validated by the EMB;
- the available audit trails; and
- security measures taken against
attacks from outside and against technical failure in the case of
electronic voting.
In
addition, the issues regarding the secrecy of the vote and the possibility of
systematic intimidation of voters should be assessed.
