Summary of Process
At the
national level, logistics should be carefully planned for receiving results
from several counting centres at the same time.
Some
suggestions to improve the efficiency of the process are discussed below. These
suggestions might need to be modified depending on the country's
infrastructure, or depending on other factors that might affect the
implementation of these suggestions.
For
greatest efficiency, one general phone number or fax number should be given to
people transmitting the results to the national office of the electoral
management body, another security measure can be communicating through an
e-mail provider that encrypts it’s end to end communication. Most telephone and
fax systems now allow for calls to a single number to automatically search for
the next available phone/fax unit on that line. For example, one team should
take care of the incoming results, and should transmit the information to the
data entry person or person in charge of gathering the results.
A wall
chart, chalkboard chart or spreadsheet listing for each electoral district
should be prepared and then completed as the results come in. Once all the
information for each counting centre is received, the combined results for the
country should be finalised.
If a
country is divided into several time zones, the results will come in at
different times of the day at the national level (depending on the closing hour
of the election). The required staff should be carefully scheduled to be
available when they are needed to compile the national results.
Special
ballots, write-in votes, mail votes as well as ballots cast in ordinary
elections, advance elections, and mobile voting stations should be part of the
count and should be released as soon as possible.
Depending
on the amount of delay that is acceptable, special ballots can be counted a few
days prior to Election Day or after the close of voting on Election Day. If the
later is the case, then the counting procedures should be designed carefully so
it will not delay releasing the final results.
For the
special votes (mail and write-in votes), envelopes received at the head office
of the electoral management body are sorted by category: absentee, armed
forces, etc. If different colours of envelopes are used, it will facilitate the
sorting by category.
For
mail votes three envelopes are originally sent to the voter: a return mailing
envelope containing an outer envelope (on which may appear the bar code and
signature of the voter) and a secrecy envelope containing the ballot.
After
verification of proper registration and no previous voting having taken place,
and the creation of the audit trail, the secrecy envelope is put into a ballot
box with its ballot still contained.
If the
special ballots are counted a few days prior to Election Day, the results
should be kept highly secure and only released at the close of voting on Election
Day.
These
special ballots can be used for absentee voting if no mechanism is in place for
voting outside the country, in embassies for example. Maintaining the results
in embassies secure is very important, although it may be hard to keep the
information from spreading, especially if the diaspora is large and actively
participates. Information about the results can be easily spread through the
diaspora, and the results can easily reach the in-country population through
social media, e-mail, and phone. One solution would be to not start the
counting of votes abroad until the counting in the country starts. Nonetheless,
this is complicated when there are very different time zones between some
embassies and the country.
For the
counting process, the same rules for vote counting in the country should be
followed.
If
advance elections take place over several days, reconciliation can be done at
the end of each day, but the ballot choices are not counted. This
reconciliation measure is for creating an audit trail of ballot usage.
The
advance voting ballot boxes are then kept safely until Election Day and
counting should take place at the closing time of the ordinary election.
The
counting of advance votes should be done in the presence of representatives of
political parties and candidates and observers. The counting procedures are
nearly identical to those used for ordinary elections.
For
counting the votes of incarcerated voters, the procedures used for advance
voting may be applied but, of course, this will only be possible if voting by
incarcerated voters takes place prior to Election Day.
Use of Technology
The use
of phones and faxes are common for transmission of electoral results. To ensure
the identity of the person transmitting results via phone or fax, an
identification number or code should be given to them. For security measures,
this code should be given on the Election Day. This method is a simple and
efficient way to avoid unauthorised people calling in and providing false
results.
Transmission
of results by modem and computer can also be used. Once again, safeguards and
passwords must be built into restricting the transmission of results to
authorised persons who are permitted access to the system.
For all
types of transmission, systems must be tested prior to Election Day to verify
their capacity under the heavy use they will encounter on election night. A
specialist should also be available at any time in case of failure of the
systems. A contingency back-up system should also be created, tested and fully
available.
