Overview
Education in support of the electoral process has become known as "voter education" where a voter is the primary target. There are a number of other areas of education required if an election is to be successful,. But these may variously be conducted by political parties and election administration officials. Voter education, on the other hand, is considered to be a separate and discreet function. It is usually identified as a function of the electoral authority and is occasionally subcontracted by them to private companies and civil society organisations. It is also fostered by public interest organisations independent of any mandate from the election authority.
What is Voter Education?
At its core, voter education is an enterprise designed to ensure that voters are ready, willing, and able to participate in electoral politics. It has been assumed that this entails election literacy and confidence that the electoral process is appropriate and effective in selecting governments and promoting policies that will benefit the individual voter.
Is Voter Education Sufficient for Democracy?
As indicated elsewhere in this topic area, voter education is essential to ensuring that voters can effectively exercise their voting rights and express their political will through the electoral process. If voters are not prepared or motivated to participate in the electoral process, then questions may arise about the legitimacy, representativeness, and responsiveness of elected leaders and institutions. At the same time, voter education is a much focused undertaking. It is targeted at eligible voters and addresses specific electoral events as well as the general electoral process. While voter education is a necessary component of the democractic electoral process, it is not sufficient for democracy.
Voter education needs to be supplemented by on-going civic education efforts in order to achieve the democratic participation and culture that flows from and is, in fact, the rationale for periodic elections. Civic education employs a broader perspective than voter education. It is concerned with citizens, rather than voters, and emphasizes the relationship between active citizenship and democratic society. It is understood that citizens must engage the political process routinely, not just at the time of elections (for more on this see Civic Education)
Certainly, participation in elections and the status of "voter" have a special weight in transitional countries holding founding elections and where the right to vote has been obtained through social struggle. As the democratic world moves toward a universal franchise, however, voting is viewed as one of the many ways in which citizens participate in and support democracy.
International Comparisons
The scope of voter education efforts required in any given country will depend upon a variety of factors. Does the country have a long history of democratic elections, or is this a founding or transitional election? Is voter registration mandatory or voluntary? Who is responsible for voter registration? Has the franchise been extended to include new groups of voters? Have there been changes to the system of representation or the voting process? Do the electoral process and political institutions enjoy the confidence of the electorate? Is the election campaign open and competitive? Have voter education efforts been undertaken in the past? Is there an on-going civic education effort? The answers to all of these questions and more will impact on the nature and reach of the voter education programme.
Whose Responsibility?
While voter information is certainly the responsibility of the election authority, voter education can easily be viewed as the responsibility of both of the election authority and civil society. A variety of other government agencies may also have some role in informing and educating citizens. The mandate of the election authority or other government agencies may be determined on the law, while civil society organisations may have, as part of their mission, a commitment to voter education and citizen political participation.
The need to educate people to take part in elections is not at issue. Whether these people are children or adults, there are many educational needs that relate to the conduct of elections. But there are also the needs related to active participation in competitive politics. One educational activity involves the use of mock or parallel elections. In Chile, for example, children accompany their parents to the polls on Election Day and actually cast ballots in a parallel election. In other cases, mock election activities may either be narrowly focused on voting behavior or incorporate the entire electoral campaign. Having children run for election or campaign for others provides important lessons that cannot be learned through an approach that focuses solely on Election Day activities.
Aims of Traditional Voter Education
Traditional voter education aims to create of a climate of knowledgeable participation by all potential voters in a forthcoming election. Is also seeks to enable potential voters to cast their votes with confidence.
These objectives may also be achieved through other interventions, and educators will want to establish programmes that work in conjunction with initiatives that address such issues as voter security, basic voting procedures, accessible voting stations, and lively but nonviolent and least intimidating campaigns on the part of candidates.
Balancing voter education programmes against these other interventions is important in ensuring that budgets are not inflated. Costs of voter education programmes can and should be based on cost-per-voter estimates. It may be argued, and is on occasion argued, that elections, however expensive, are cheaper than war or endemic community conflict. This is true, but the purpose of democratic elections is to ensure ongoing periodic elections, and this cannot be done extravagantly forever. Costs need to be weighed carefully and cost effective programmes developed. Sometimes this may require constraining the objectives that really have to be achieved by the programme in order to have an effective election.
Timing of Information
The timing of voter education may - or may not - be the same as that of a voter information programme, although they are likely to run concurrently at some points. In particular, the timing of a voter education programme may depend upon the duration of the programme, the institution undertaking the programme, the mandate or mission of that institution, the parameters of the programme, the types of instructional materials being developed, and the needs of the target group(s).
In settings where there is no permanent election authority and where resources are limited, a voter education programme may only be conducted at the time of elections and in conjunction with any voter information efforts. In some cases, voter education may be initiated somewhat earlier than voter information, particularly if major changes are being made to a country's system of representation and legal framework for elections, where the franchise is being extended, and where significant changes are made to political and electoral processes. In countries with longer standing democracies and where there is a permanent election authority and sufficient resources, however, voter education may be an on-going activity. Depending upon the mandate of the election authority and the mission of certain civil society organisations, voter education may be handled through a broader civic education program as a component thereof.
If conducted through the school system, a voter education short course may also be incorporated as part of a broader civic education curriculum. This course might be offered to children of various ages, or only to those approaching voting age. The amount of time spent on voter education in this case may also depend upon the depth and breadth of the course in question. Role playing, mock campaigns and elections, and learning exercises both inside and out of the classroom may be included. Activities might be limited to a particular class or include all classes and a number of grades. There might even be competitions between schools. The more thorough and complex the course, the greater amount of time that will need to be dedicated. Additional information on simulations can also be found under Simulations
Messages and Methods
Helping citizens understand and participate in elections, other than as a contestant or supporter of a contestant (an important and under exploited form of education),requires concentration on a few key concerns. These seem to have somewhat universal significance, although each election may have its own special features.
Educators will also have methodological considerations. These are addressed in Potential Programme Elements. Various programme elements may be appropriate depending on the resources available and the objectives that have been set by the education organisation or, alternatively, by the organisation sponsoring the programme. Methodological variations demonstrate that voter education falls between "voter information" and "civic education".
Standard Voter Education Messages
Voter educators make use of certain standard messages. Standardisation implies two things.
- Certain key elements of a message must be conveyed and
- A message document can be reproduced as is or be recast for further distribution.
There are four general messages that all voter education programmes will communicate. This will require that educators work with content specialists to ensure that the messages are discussed in ways that have meaning for the particular country in which democracy is being developed. Each country has its own history, and this history provides organising themes and democratic myths as well as procedural and principled nuances that will require a different treatment from that prepared even in a neighbouring country. It is possible, however, to outline the concerns that are likely to be addressed in each area.
- Elections and democracy:. It is impossible to conceive of democracy in a modern and complex organisation or society being possible without a system of establishing the choices of large bodies of citizens through voting procedures. Elections are one of the defining events of modern democracies,, With periodic and fair elections come the additional prerequisites that citizens will have choices between individuals, parties, and policy options. They will also have the freedom to make these choices without undue intimidation, and will have the right to put themselves or others forward as candidates for office. Finally, they will have the necessary freedoms to discuss policy options and to form associations that will either compete in elections, or endorse certain candidates or parties, and/or provide them with the information and discussion they need to make their election choices at the ballot box. They will also have the freedom of movement to campaign on behalf of their cause or candidate throughout the country.
Developing these arguments is essential, as it is possible that there will be those who may think that elections could be conducted without such conditions being in place. In India, the election authority must determine whether such conditions are present before allowing an election to proceed. But there have been other times, in other places, when elections have been used to develop credibility and apparent legitimacy for a government that has no intention of ensuring that the necessary democratic rights are present during an election period.
- The role, responsibility and rights of the voter. The second message area provides citizens with motivation for participation in elections. They learn how individual participation in elections establishes representative government and ensures accountability by those who are elected.
It is not enough, however, merely to concentrate on roles and responsibilities. Educators must also consider the rights to a free and fair election. Helping voters understand these rights facilitates election monitoring by all citizens and not just specialised groups. It ensures oversight of both candidates and the election administration.
- Your vote counts. While all systems present the principle that every vote counts, there are some nuances in message depending on the electoral system used. In first past the post systems, electoral success or failure may be determined by a small number of votes where there will be a marginal winner and loser. In systems that use proportionality, every vote counts toward building up the proportional representation of the voter's preferred candidate.
Apart from the numbers game, voters need to be made aware that each individual vote has weight in determining the rights that they have over the elected party or representative once the election has been won or lost. If a representative relationship cannot be formed between citizens and elected officials, citizens may begin to feel that their vote does not, in fact, count for much.
- Your vote is secret. There are many circumstances where it is essential that voters be protected from intimidation and fear of subsequent political and personal consequences. In such circumstances, the message that a vote is secret has to be conveyed and, possibly, proved. Secrecy has both positive and negative connotations, and in societies that value community, secrecy may be suspect. Or there may be societies that consider secrecy to be impossible, whether as a result of dysfunctional administration or prevailing belief structures.
In these circumstances, examples of matters that are secret, or that cannot be found out, provide educators with potential metaphors for the voting process. And there may be alternative approaches. Perhaps the most powerful is when elections are repeated and no dire consequences befall voters. But election legislation will have to back up the message by considering carefully the manner in which counting of votes takes place and results are announced. An individual vote may be secret, but a community preference may not, and this can have equally important consequences.
Other Messages
Each election will have an additional set of standard messages appropriate for the particular election. In many cases, these messages will include a catch phrase that can be used for shorter communications such as stickers, posters and clothing. These messages need to be prepared by educators in a form that can be widely used. They may even form part of a fax data bank so that educators with access to the correct telephone and fax facilities can dial in and obtain copies of the messages for further use and distribution. Those countries with e-mail and Internet access can provide distribution through these means.
In addition to these standard messages, there is an additional standard message tool that has obtained wide currency and may even be the most important and widely distributed document prepared by an education programme. This is the Frequently Asked Questions document.
Frequently Asked Questions
From the very beginning of an election, educators will start collecting lists of questions being asked in workshops, in telephone calls, and by election staff as they are recruited and trained. These questions should be catalogued and categorised. When there is an initial list of about ten questions, succinct answers should be prepared and the document containing the question followed by the answer made available in as many ways as possible.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) list may be altered many times during the course of an election. Additional questions will be added, and additional information will be available that might change current answers or add to them. Someone should be given the task of keeping the list up to date and distributing it.
Because it will change often, and may be sent out by fax or e-mail, or even distributed at training workshops, it is essential that every version be numbered, dated, and in the last days before an election even timed. If the FAQs are being prepared by an organisation or by the electoral authority, it should have a cover that gives all the details of the organisation that prepared and distributed it, together with ways of making direct contact for further information.
There may be separate FAQs for election administration staff and for educators. It is important to understand that different people have different questions. Whatever the case, this summary of all the concerns that people have about the election and the short and authoritative answers will be a tool that can have an impact that will more than justify its preparation costs.
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