Consortia and coalitions dedicated to voter education have to manage information in order to make their programmes effective, and those that do not are likely to become frustrated and experience ongoing conflict.
Information Essential for Voter Educators
Those who are conducting programmes in support of an election authority need information that only the election authority may have. And they need it in time in order to produce accurate and reliable educational or informational resources. They may also need information from other statutory authorities. And they need it from one another.
Unfortunately, information is a commodity that can confer power and economic benefit. As a result, the voter education enterprise may be beset with restrictions on access to information. Consortia and coalitions have to develop ways of overcoming these restrictions.
Disclosure Clauses
In the first place, they can guard the proprietary information that they obtain from one another so that this does not result in competitive advantages, or impact any of the members' future earning ability. Those who team up will want to develop clauses preventing their partners from disclosing the proprietary information they obtain about or from one another.
While such clauses may seem self-serving and secretive, they do provide the confidence that partners need in a competitive environment. And they act as a protocol for determining the manner in which general information about their programme will be shared with the public at large.
Transparency
In personal relationships, self-disclosure sets the tone for disclosure and deepening of trust by the other party. Similar transparency between consortia or coalitions and the outside world is likely to improve the chances for reciprocity of information. A willingness to make information available to donors, international visitors, election management authorities and the press in a simple and reliable form does produce benefits that outweigh the trouble to which one must go to make it available and the risks that can result.
Election Management Authorities
Releasing information:
The election management authority will have to consider ways in which it can make its information generally available. As elections draw near, the pressure on election staff, and the number of decisions they have to make, increases. It is easy to ignore small decisions that could have a serious impact on voter education programmes, such as changes in regulations regarding the role of certain electoral officials, judgements in electoral courts that impact on the conduct of contestants, and so on. Most of these will result in small changes. But in a transitional election there can be significant changes that are not communicated, such as the decision to move from one ballot box to two, or to change the ballot design. Such changes can severely discredit voter education programmes that are prepared in advance and are not capable of changing at the last minute They can affect the election performance of those who have already been through voter education or party training events. In some cases, conflict in voting stations has been heightened by inaccuracies caused by withholding information.
Listening to information from outside:
Apart from the responsibility for disseminating information, election management authorities become more and more closed to information coming from outside that may require changes in, for example, officially placed advertising, or decisions about training of election staff. The reasons for becoming closed may be good ones. After all, the pressures on election authorities can increase and be driven by political considerations, or they can come from people with a limited perspective on the election. There will be a need to establish a mechanism that can be responsive and able to check information given by voter education and similar electoral support programmes. Where this information can be verified, it can provide relatively cheap and widely spread early warning systems of potential problems.
General State and Government Information
Those conducting voter education need access to general information about the country and its citizens. Where this is publicly available, problems are reduced. But there are countries where, either for policy or infrastructural reasons, information is restricted. In some places, state structures may actively resist making information available to particular organisations.
So coalitions and consortia will need to develop relationships with individuals and with state institutions in which they use the reputation of one or other member for nonpartisan and professional behaviour to free up the information that is required.
In some cases, such negotiations can only be conducted by the election authority itself. This is a service that can be offered by those authorities that have understood the importance of ensuring participation in the voter education enterprise by a wide range of individuals and institutions.
