It is good practice to derive voting operations work plans from the electoral management body's strategic plan. Work plans for voting operations are likely to be highly influenced by the nature of the electoral management body and the predictability of the election cycle.
Temporary Electoral Management Bodies
Without permanent electoral management bodies, all voting operations activities, including the development of work plans, are likely to be compressed within the election period. This requires notice of the election sufficiently in advance to allow management structures to be established and implemented and all processes to be ready by voting day.
The length of this time period is particularly important in transitional elections where electoral management bodies may be newly appointed legal and procedural frameworks may have changed and may be subject to change again during the election period.
In such cases it would be unlikely for an election of acceptable quality to be organized without at least a six month period between finalizations of the election framework, the appointment of the electoral management body and the setting of the voting date.
Permanent Electoral Management Bodies
Permanent Electoral Management Bodies have certain advantages. These include:
- The development of voting operations systems and the acquisition of the resources required to manage the election can progress between elections maintaining a state of improving readiness. Work plans that include the entire cycle from election to election invariably produce more cost-effective and higher quality results.
- Electoral management bodies that maintain only a core central presence between elections allow for election cycle work plans to more easily concentrate on the development of systems and procedures, the planning of supply needs and their acquisition, and voting operations implementation at local levels.
- Electoral management bodies that have some permanent presence at a more local level (which can generally be more cost-effectively maintained on an agency basis using other state resources),are able to develop work plans that include the whole election-to-election cycle. This can more easily be extended to maintain local readiness, in terms of issues such as:
• identifying potential voting sites and locations;
• preparing preliminary materials and equipment needs schedules;
• identifying potential staffing needs;
• maintaining contact with potential senior voting staff;
• pre-packaging of existing materials for voting stations;
• maintaining local voter information programmes.
Integration of Tasks
Voting operations work plans that integrate the activities of all key participants, provide a layered structure of task definitions, time frames and task responsibilities for individual staff and each electoral management body office within an overall systemic view.
Effective voting operations integrate the activities of large numbers of people from a number of different organizational entities - including contractors for supplies, security forces, and electoral management body staff- and develop work plans based on proven business planning principles that allow the tracking of election readiness.
Essential ingredients of a work plan include:
• Identifying all tasks relevant to the implementation of voting operations;
• Prioritising these tasks by identifying those essential for the proper conduct of voting and those that are “add-ons” that will improve the quality of service, but, in the event of insufficient time for implementation, can be foregone without affecting election integrity;
• Establishing the relationships and dependencies between all these tasks, that is how they fit together and what tasks have to be commenced or completed before work on other tasks can begin;
• Developing integrated time frames for the completion of these tasks that will result in all processes being ready for operation at the time required in the election calendar;
• Responsibilities and accountabilities for the completion of particular tasks and liaison between the various service providers are clearly identified see Assignment of Responsibilities;
• Although reviews of progress are vital in relation to the critical points in the election calendar, continuous monitoring and reporting is also necessary for timely rectification of any deficiencies.
It is good practice to use self-monitoring and supervised checklists to review progress (see Checklists for Planning. To be effective special care must be taken to ensure that voting services that need to be operational before the general voting day, such as early voting in any form, are adequately covered in the work plan time frames. (For further discussion of calendars and time lines for work plans, see Calendars and Time Lines)
Developing Work Plans
When developing work plans for voting operations, the following considerations need to be taken into account:
Work plans that aim at providing realistically achievable level of services. the bottom line for an effective plan is that it must work. There are potentially elegant and sophisticated ways of organizing and implementing voting that are not necessarily effective. Put in place the most effective plan as there is only one chance for it to work. Rather put emphasis on planning for the most practical solutions to provide acceptable levels of election integrity.
The time frames for actions must also be realistic, and sufficient for
• administrators to accomplish the required tasks cost-effectively;
• to allow the participation of voters and political participants;
• to allow the effective integration of services provided by external suppliers, such as; Contractors, other government agencies, and/or international organizations.
Some measure of flexibility is required to allow for adaptations to any changes in the environment whether from failure to achieve intended work objectives or changes to the election framework;
• Contingency measures are an essential part of voting operations work plans, particularly where elections are not at fixed intervals as the early calling of an election may interrupt medium to longer term development strategies, and where elections are being held under new systems;
• Flexibility is important as voting operations work plans may need to cope with adjustments for delays and extensions in other election processes, such as voter registration. In post-conflict situations, particularly, voting operation work plans may have to cope with continuing negotiations on the election framework.
"Readiness" encompasses more than procedures and materials being in place on the day they are required.
Work plan time frames must allow for an assessment of whether all required facilities are actually functioning.
For some tasks, such as the development of new systems and procedures, work plans may have to provide for a training period of some weeks. Avoid overloading or taking on too many tasks into the week before the general voting day as during this period staff are under pressure preparing for voting day. Additional pressure can provoke a crisis.
Information Management Plan
An important, and often overlooked, part of voting operations work plans is the development of an internal information management plan for the electoral management body. Voting operations require the transfer of vast amounts of information, from central management through regional and/or local offices, and then to voting stations, regarding procedures and the environment, and then back up the chain, about conditions and occurrences in the field.
Methods of disseminating and acknowledging the receipt of information, and a planned information dissemination timetable are basic issues in ensuring consistency, competency, and flexibility of service. (For information dissemination methods, see Communications Systems)
