Voting procedures will be dependent on the legal, regulatory and policy framework. Like electoral systems, they may often be a product of the past, rather than an effective response to current voting needs.
The equity, integrity, service levels and accessibility of election processes will be primarily determined by the range of voting methods available to voters and the procedural controls.
A major challenge in devising voting methods and procedures is to ensure that all persons registered to vote have an equitable opportunity to participate in voting, irrespective of their geographic location, gender or class, literacy level, occupation, or physical condition. Guiding principles of Voting Operations should be the starting point for the development of appropriate voting procedures.
Normal Voting
Most voters will be casting their ballot on the general voting day (or one of the general voting days) at a voting station in the electoral district in which they are registered to vote. Voting procedures for this mass of voters should include:
• Electoral system requirements--in the type and format of ballots, and the method of indicating the preferred candidate or candidates;
• Integrity requirements--in preventing voter fraud, through measures to combat intimidation, unduly influence, attempted multiple voting, impersonation and ballot box stuffing;
• Service requirements--in promoting an easily understandable, orderly, swift and accurate processing of voters through the voting station;
• Cost-effectiveness requirements--in allowing staffing, premises, materials, and equipment models that enable efficiencies in processing of voters to be realized.
Special Voting Facilities
Providing special voting facilities for electors who, on voting day, are unable to access a normal voting station in the electoral district in which they are registered to vote makes an important contribution to increasing accessibility and equity of voting processes.
With increasing personal mobility, for both work and social reasons, greater proportions of voter populations are unlikely to be at their normal residence on voting day.
For voters in remote locations, or who have disabilities, equity considerations would demand that they be provided with reasonable opportunity to vote. With voter turnout proportions recognized as an indicator of legitimacy of elected representatives, there is a community interest in making voting methods appropriate for the needs and lifestyles of the population.
The extent to which special voting facilities are provided will be influenced by:
• Philosophical factors, such as whether communities regard voting as a personal right or a civic duty;
• Practical factors, stemming from examination of the need for particular types of special voting facilities;
• Financial and cost-effectiveness factors.
For cost and integrity reasons, certain special voting facilities may require additional qualifications from voters over and above those required for normal voter registration.
Cost Factors of Special Voting
Providing special voting facilities, while increasing accessibility to the election process, can greatly increase both costs and complexity of the election.
There will generally be additional management requirements and direct costs for providing these facilities.
Additional staff and training, and possibly also additional logistical requirements, special materials and distribution control records and systems, and mailing costs will be needed. Additional costs will include increased communication challenges to deliver voting operations information about special voting to voters, electoral administrators and voting station staff.
Also, there will usually be additional integrity controls required on special voting methods, to prevent impersonation and to ensure that voters do not have some form of special vote and then also vote at a normal voting station.
Types of Special Voting Facilities
A number of different types of special voting, and procedures for implementing them, are described in the following sections:
• Absentee Voting, dealing with procedures for voters out of their electoral district of registration on voting day;
• Voting in a foreign country, dealing with the provision of voting facilities for registered voters who are in foreign countries at the time of the election;
• Early Voting , dealing with methods by which voters unable to go to their normal voting station on the general voting day can vote at an earlier time;
• Proxy Voting, dealing with procedures whereby voters unable to attend a voting station may appoint another person to vote for them;
• Provisional or tendered votes, dealing with a method of assisting voters who claim to be registered but who cannot be found on the voting station's voters list.
Minority Community Groups
Apart from providing special voting facilities for the community at large, there are population segments that require specific voting facilities appropriate to their needs to enable them to participate in voting.
Devising cost-effective methods of catering to such minority groups is an integral part of providing not only voter service, but equity and integrity in voting operations as well.
For a general discussion of community sectors with special needs, and those who can only be reached by providing mobile voting stations, see Other Special Voting Arrangements specific community elements for which additional facilities would be beneficial include:
• Voters who are illiterate or semi-literate or are illiterate in the language in which the election is being conducted.
• Voters who have physical disabilities which preclude their voting in the normal fashion.
• Ill and infirm voters confined to their homes.
• Voters who are confined to hospital or other care institutions on voting day.
• Voters living in remote areas, where the voting population is insufficient to justify the establishment of normal voting stations
• Security and other emergency forces who are not able to leave their duty stations on voting day.
• Persons eligible to vote who are serving prison sentences on voting day.
• Refugees and displaced persons, who may not be able to return to their previous area of residence to vote.
• Treatment of voters who, for reasons of personal safety, have had their registration details deleted from published voters lists.
