The determination of the most appropriate audiences for voter education is not entirely in the hands of the voter educator. Politics, constitutions and laws constrain or direct the programme.
Role of Politics
Voter education empowers voters. It encourages them to register and, if registered, to vote. It instructs them how to correctly mark their ballots to ensure that they are not invalided during the counting process. It encourages them to make up their own minds about who to vote for, and it gives them the skills necessary to weigh the options open to them. These are activities that have political consequences. So it is not surprising if there are attempts made by political interests either to expand the mandate of voter educators or alternatively reduce it through formal and informal means.
In situations where elections have begun to take on a regular tempo, and where there is general social consensus about the benefit of elections and the potential for regular alteration in government, election authorities may be able to establish an educational programme that is comprehensive and inclusive. In societies where there are still high stakes and where elections are being driven by international coercion or an inclination to establish public legitimacy without extending political power, however, there will be attempts to reduce the opportunities for broad-based voter education.
Under such circumstances, it will be necessary to manage forms of interference in voter education that range from intimidation and violence targeted at both educators and participants, and attempts to limit voter access, to discrediting educators and their programmes and decisions about budget, legislation, the timing of elections, and other matters in the hands of government.
Constitutions Make Judgements and Confer Rights
Where there are constitutions, and in particular in societies that operate under bills of rights, there are likely to be questions of equity. In some societies it may be possible to focus voter education on particular groups. But statutory authorities are likely to be faced with a requirement that all voters should receive equal treatment and equal service. This can act as a motivator for voter educators. But it may also inhibit them from offering more than very basic information on a universal basis.
Anything more than a basic and general voter education programme would require some differentiation. And this would have to be handled carefully so as to avoid any controversy that could undermine the programme. This may be the case, for example, in a legal challenge about a programme only being provided to one sector of society or being offered at different cost levels in different parts of the country.
There are settings where there is no constitution. This may stem from a society that operates on a set of historical documents and precedents such as Great Britain. Or, it may be because a country is revising its constitutional framework or its previous constitution has been undermined by conflict. In such cases, voter educators may in fact have the advantage of being able to draw on other mandates to focus their education on target groups such as previously disenfranchised people, or combatants, or ethnic or linguistic minorities, and so on. Whatever the case, educators will not want to take for granted that a universal and limited service is the most appropriate and most effective form of voter education.
Legislation Establishes Responsibilities and Limitations
Election authorities are given a particular mandate by legislation or, in some cases, by executive order. This mandate may include the responsibility to provide voter information or education. Election authorities in some countries, for example in Russia, Ukraine, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Paraguay, have a substantial mandate to conduct voter and/or civic education.
In others, particularly in developing or transitional settings, the election authority may have no clear mandate to conduct voter education. While the need for some form of official voter education may seem obvious, election authorities, particularly those in highly politically polarized environment, may be hesitant to overstep their legal mandate, or will at least be particularly sensitive to such perceptions. In cases where legislation constrains official voter educators, it may be possible for them to make use of their relationships with educators in the civil society sector either to extend their own programme or to ensure that the responsibility for voter education is being assumed by some qualified and appropriate entity. It is the legislation, however, that will determine whether this extended or alternative work receives any funding from official sources.
