Except in societies where voting station staff are undertaking a civic duty and are not compensated, the major item of voting operations expenditure is likely to be staffing costs. Hence efficiencies that can be made here will generally impact greatly on overall election cost-effectiveness. Specific costs that will need to be considered include:
• permanent electoral management body staff salaries and associated costs for overtime, travel and meal allowances;
• wages for temporary election administration staff, in field offices and at electoral management body headquarters, salaries and associated payments for training, overtime, travel and meal allowances;
• voting station staff wages, and any associated payments for training, travel allowances, and meal allowances or food supplies;
• any special facilities to be provided to voting station officials or administration staff, such as vehicles and temporary accommodation in remote areas;
• any additional recruitment costs for temporary staff.
Measures that may be taken to enhance cost effectiveness in relation to these resources include:
• use of electoral staff or voting station officials who can be employed free of charge, either by seconding from other government agencies or by working on a voluntary basis;
• retention of staff from past elections, which can reduce both recruitment costs and training costs as well as increase overall efficiency of operations and voter service;
• use of an effective standard system, based on tested workload capacities, for allocating numbers of voting station officials to each voting station.
