Action plans for recruitment of the required number of voting operations staff need to define:
• responsibilities for recruitment and appointment,
• recruitment timing so that staff are appointed and trained in time to undertake their tasks, and
• A methodology for recruitment that ensures that the best available quality staff are appointed in a transparent manner.
For discussions of these issues, see the following:
• Recruitment Methodology;
• Transparency in Recruitment;
• Nature of Appointment Contracts and Staff Appointment Documentation;
• Contingency Staff;
• Training of Voting Operations Staff.
Recruitment Planning
The sheer numbers of staff that are required for voting operations means that planning of recruitment needs to be meticulous and detailed in its approach. National elections are likely to be one of the largest staff recruitment exercises undertaken in a country. The major steps in planning recruitment of voting operations staff include:
• determining recruitment responsibilities;
• implementing publicity campaigns for employment of temporary voting operations staff through the use of media, civic and voter educators, and publicly available information pamphlets;
• maintaining applications received for voting operations staff positions;
• assessment of applicants or nominated staff against criteria for requisite voting operations positions;
• determination of numbers of staff required for voting stations and other special voting facilities, including contingency reserve staff (see Contingency Staff);
• selection and training of the appropriate staff;
• formal appointment of staff to defined staffing positions and their allocation to specific voting station locations or reserve duties.
Recruitment Responsibilities
Best practice requires that the formal appointment of staff would be the responsibility of the electoral management body.
Electoral management bodies may not have the resources or expertise to recruit all staff from a central point for the entire election. Centralised recruitment may also not be the appropriate model to allow effective use of local knowledge of employment environments and suitable potential staff, or quick and appropriate response to particular local needs.
Adopting a model whereby the bulk of recruitment is devolved to a regional or electoral district level can have significant advantages. Where electoral management bodies are temporary, a full cascade recruitment process--in which the central electoral management body recruits electoral district managers and, these in turn, recruit their voting station, counting, and administrative assistance staff--will reduce the load on central administrators.
In some cases, particularly where administrative districts cover large geographic areas, it may be more effective for voting station managers to recruit their own voting station staff. In such decentralised systems there will need to be monitoring and review of local recruitment processes to ensure that quality and impartiality standards for staff are met and that recruitment processes are being applied in a transparent manner. (For further discussion of recruitment methods, see Recruitment Methodology.)
External Assistance
The electoral management body may not have sufficient resources to undertake the entire recruitment process without external assistance. Using external alternatives, such as contracting out recruitment to specialist employment agencies or automatically accepting nominations from other state authorities for voting operations staff, may be seen to compromise staffing integrity.
In such instances the electoral management body should retain control of final selection of staff.
However, where a full selection process is undertaken with applications and interviews of all those applying for employment, specialist agencies may be of assistance at the shortlisting stage in assessing and ranking applicants.
Nomination and seconding of state agencies' and local government authorities' staff for voting operations positions can provide core staff with dependable relevant skills. Responsibilities for final selection and appointments should still reside with officers within the electoral management structure specifically authorised to engage staff.
Timing of Recruitment
Recruitment processes must be firmly tied to the election timetable o deliver sufficient trained staff by the dates their services will be required. The appropriate timing for recruitment will depend largely on:
• The election system. Where elections are held at fixed, regular intervals, staff recruitment should be integrated into continuous election planning. It can be initiated some months prior to the known voting date.
Where election dates are flexible, or an election is being held to resolve a period of social conflict, recruitment strategies need to be initiated as soon as possible after the date the election is announced. In all cases, recruitment must be completed in time to allow training of voting station and counting staff to be completed around seven days prior to the election.
• The organisational management structure of the electoral management body. Where there are no permanent staff, or agents, of the electoral management body at the local level, there will generally be a need to recruit highly skilled electoral district managers, or local election commissions, to manage voting operations in each electoral district or for subdivisions of electoral districts.
In these circumstances, recruitment will need to be undertaken in at least two phases--an initial phase to put a local supervisory management structure into place and a later phase for the bulk of staff required for voting station and count duties.
• The methodology adopted for recruitment. If staff members at all levels are to be recruited in a single centralised process, this may be less efficient time-wise than distributing recruitment responsibilities to the local level. The recruitment period may also be compressed where active contact is maintained with staff from previous elections, rather than having to start recruitment anew for each election, or where the bulk of voting station staff are seconded from other government agencies.
The rigorousness of the selection process for new staff will also affect the time that is needed to finalise recruitment. Earlier commencement of recruitment will be required where a fully transparent merit selection process involving review of applications for employment and/or interviews with applicants is implemented.
• The range of voting services to be provided. Under voting frameworks that allow early voting there will be a requirement for some voting station staff to be trained for duties in advance of voting day. Depending on the numbers involved, and the length of the period allowed for early voting, it may be considered useful to recruit these staff members at an earlier time than those required only for the general voting day.
• The overall numbers of temporary staff required, as well as the resources available to apply to recruitment processes.
• The need for temporary administrative assistance for voting operations functions in staff servicing functions, such as payroll management, logistics organisation and control, and materials packaging.
As these tasks will need to be undertaken well in advance of voting day, and may require different skills, , earlier recruitment drive could be considered to fill such positions.
