Absentee voting is a more complex, more costly, and potentially less transparent form of voting. Access to absentee voting facilities is often restricted to those with particular legislatively-defined qualifications.
The qualifications (if any) imposed for absentee voters will depend on the ability to provide and manage absentee voting facilities, and equity considerations for those who are unable to attend the voting station(s) at which they are registered to vote. In part this will come down to a societal ethos of whether voting is seen as a right or a duty.
In its most narrow interpretation, absentee voting may be restricted to those whose official duties prevent them from attending their normal voting station--for example, polling officials, security forces on duty on voting day, officials of the state employed at foreign locations.
If absentee voting facilities are to be provided, restricting them to serving employees of the state can raise questions about the integrity of the election process - especially where state organizations or the military are perceived as closely aligned to or under the influence of political forces.
Where equity considerations are given more weight, qualifications for absentee voting may be extended to categories of voters whose physical condition or employment duties prevent them from attending the voting station(s) at which they are registered to vote. Such categories could include:
• Serving military personnel or security force personnel;
• People with physical disabilities, such as bed-ridden patients serviced by mobile voting facilities or wheelchair patients whose assigned voting station lacks wheelchair access;
• Other institutionalized voters;
• Voters whose employment requires them to be absent from their area of registration on voting day.
Or who have moved residence, since the deadline for voter registration, out of the electoral area in which they registered.
No-Limitation Systems
In systems where voter accessibility and promoting maximum participation are the dominant principles, access to absentee voting facilities provided may be open to any otherwise qualified voter. Implementing such systems requires a high level of professionalism in election administration and will have a significant effect in increasing election costs.
The convenience for voters of being able to vote at multiple voting locations is likely to encourage voters to use this more costly method rather than make some effort to attend the voting station at which they are basically eligible to vote. Less rigorous systems of establishing voter eligibility may not be sustainable with high numbers of absentee voters.
Large numbers of absentee voters will exacerbate administrative pressures on integrity controls, voting materials supply, issue and return, and staffing requirements.
Absentee Vote Eligibility Procedures
No matter who may be qualified to use absentee voting facilities
or what restrictions are placed on where absentee voters may vote (see Locations for absentee voting), additional measures will need to be implemented to check the eligibility of voters using absentee voting facilities. These measures will need to ensure that:
• Voters are who they claim to be;
• Voters cast their ballots for the electoral district for which they are eligible to vote;
• Voters do not vote more than once in any election, particularly by casting both an absentee ballot and a ballot at any other voting facilities.
Possible Control Methods
Potential control methods for voter eligibility would include requiring:
• absentee voters to apply prior to voting day to the electoral management body and be granted a certificate entitling them to an absentee vote which is surrendered when they vote;
• absentee voters to apply to the electoral management body prior to voting day for registration on special voters lists of absentee voters to be used in absentee voting locations;
• absentee voters to complete a declaration containing their details before being issued voting material at the voting location.
In this last instance, since there has been no prior application made, these details must be checked following the close of voting, at locations with access to full voters register details, to determine the eligibility of the voter and that the voter has voted only once, to determine if these ballots may be included in ballot counts.
Absentee Voting by Certificate
Under such systems, absentee voters obtain, prior to voting day, a certificate from the electoral management body authorising them to vote at a specified voting station, other than the one to which they are assigned. Effective characteristics of such systems would include:
• voters must apply for an absentee vote, prior to voting day, in an official form that enables the electoral management body to determine if the voter meets any restrictive criteria in election rules as to who may cast an absentee vote--and, if eligible, voters are issued certificates specifying which voting station they are entitled to use for an absentee vote (with lists of expected absentee voters provided to the relevant voting station managers);
• to maintain integrity, voters issued with such certificates would preferably be identified by the electoral management body on the voters register to be used at their home voting station;
• at the voting station, voters are subject to identity checking and surrender the certificates to the appropriate official, who arranges for the voters to be issued the correct voting material, and who also maintains a record of all such voters issued with voting material;
• controls on voter identity and multiple voting remain the same as for ordinary voters;
• records of absentee voters are included in reconciliations of voting material at the close of voting.
Such procedures, while well suited to systems only allowing absentee voters to vote at voting stations within the electoral district for which they are registered to vote, can be unwieldy where there are large numbers of absentee voters, or where voters may vote at voting locations outside their electoral district. There may also be problems in administering such systems where an election involves more than one round of voting.
Use of Special Absentee Voters Registers
Alternatively, control of absentee voting can be instituted by constructing special voters registers for absentee voters. This may be an effective means for controlling voter eligibility where absentee voters can vote at a location outside their electoral district of registration, and where special absentee voting locations are provided. Effective characteristics of such systems would include:
• a requirement for registered voters to apply, prior to voting day, to the electoral management body for registration as an absentee voter at a specific absentee voting location--with deadlines for such registration allowing sufficient time to determine if the voter meets any required qualifications for absentee voting and for printing and distribution of relevant voters lists;
• to preserve integrity, voters assigned to absentee voters lists would preferably either be removed from copies of normal voters lists used in voting stations, or their entries on these lists be marked, prior to issue to voting stations, to indicate they have been included on an absentee voters list elsewhere;
• to make location of the voters entry in the list easier, absentee voters lists produced would preferably list all voters alphabetically, with the relevant electoral district of registration indicated against each voter's entry on the list (where relatively small numbers of electoral districts are involved, a separate list could be produced for each district);
• on arrival at the voting location, the voter undergoes normal eligibility checks, for identity, against the absentee voters register, and for multiple voting, and if these are passed, is issued voting material for the appropriate electoral district as indicated in the absentee voters list;
• at close of voting, voting materials issued to absentee voters should be reconciled against names marked as issued with voting material on absentee voters lists.
Such systems can be complex to administer in the hectic period before voting day, when the preparation and integrity checking of yet more voters lists can be a significant load on electoral management bodies. They are more suited to systems where there are limited numbers of separate absentee voting locations in major regional centres (rather than available in all normal voting stations).
Absentee Voting On Application at Voting Station
Rather than imposing eligibility controls on absentee voting by verification checks before voting day, eligibility could be checked after the close of voting. Under such systems qualified voters can request an absentee vote at any voting station at which absentee votes are issued. Effective characteristics of such systems would include:
• normal identity and multiple voting checks applied to each absentee voter;
• before being issued voting material, the voters make signed declarations of their personal details--for maximum effectiveness these would include name, address of registration, date of birth, any other particulars that may assist in determining the eligibility of the voter under the particular electoral system (this statement could be witnessed by a polling official, or another voter registered at that voting station, and where voters are issued voter identification cards, relevant details could be copied by the polling official or voter from the voter identification card);
• on the basis of the information in this statement, the polling official determines the appropriate electoral district for which the voter should be issued voting material (in systems where voters are not issued and required to bring voter identification cards when voting, polling officials will require reference material linking addresses to electoral districts to ensure the correct voting material is issued);
• when voters have completed their ballots, the ballots are sealed in an envelope containing the voter's declaration before being placed in the ballot box;
• after the close of voting, ballot envelopes are reconciled to ballot issue records, sorted by electoral district, and returned to the appropriate location (the home electoral district office or a regional centre) for eligibility checking of the details provided by the voter, and further processing;
• care needs to be taken to ensure that multiple votes are not allowed into ballot counts.
As a basic precaution, absentee ballot envelopes for an electoral district must be checked against voters' lists for the relevant voting stations, and where a voter is marked as having voted at their regular voting station, the absentee ballot invalidated and multiple voting investigations commenced.
All voters from whom absentee ballots are received should also, during this check, be marked as having voted, on the relevant electoral district's voters list to guard against multiple absentee ballots from the one voter being counted.
Measures also need to be taken to ensure voting secrecy. This could be done by using a double enveloping system, where the voter's ballot is placed in an inner envelope which is then placed in an outer envelope containing the voter's identity details.
Once the voter's details have been checked after the close of voting, the inner envelope is separated from the outer envelope and mixed with other absentee vote inner envelopes before the ballot is extracted for the count.
Alternatively, a single stubbed/counterfoiled envelope could be used, with the voter's details being written on the envelope stub/counterfoil which is removed after eligibility checking and the envelope mixed with other absentee ballot envelopes before ballots are extracted for counting.
Such systems are complex to administer. In planning for voting day there is no mechanism, apart from prior election experience, to determine how many absentee voters will attend to vote at individual absentee voting locations. Thus materials supply and staffing for voting locations catering to absentee voters will be more difficult to plan, and resource allocations may be less efficient. Additional materials and training for voting station officials may be required to ensure effective materials control.
Strict control systems for return of completed ballots are also required. It would generally be simpler for eligibility checking and counting to be conducted at a central location.
As eligibility checks occur after the close of voting, if there are large numbers of absentee voters, results of counts may also be delayed. Implementation of such procedures in environments where there is no history of integrity in election administration would not be advisable.
However, where systems promote maximum voter accessibility by allowing absentee voters to vote at any voting station, or at a large number of locations outside their electoral district of registration, it may be the most practicable method of eligibility control.
