What is involved when looking at the broad area of security in relation to voting operations? Immediate attention is generally attracted to securing voting locations and voter safety on voting day, so that voting may occur without disruption, fraud, intimidation, or threat to life.
However, the facets of election security are much broader than that and affect all aspects of an election. Without sufficient guarantees of security at all stages of the election process (and "sufficient" varies widely according to each country's social and political environment), there can be no guarantee of election freedom, fairness, and integrity.
In broad terms, election security would address three objectives:
• physical security of premises and materials;
• personal security of voters, candidates, party workers or officials, electoral officials, and the general community;
• security of election information, computer systems and software, and communication systems
Powers to enforce election security measures in these regards would normally be legislatively defined.
Specific Security Concerns
Specifically, measures taken may need to address the security needs of:
• electors registering to vote;
• voter registration staff and premises;
• electoral management body staff and premises;
• voter education and information workers;
• production, transport, and use of election materials and equipment, particularly voting material;
• premises used for production and storage of election materials and equipment;
• potential voters;
• training, voting, and ballot counting locations;
• training, polling, and counting officials;
• party workers, candidates, and their supporters
• premises used for party or candidate activities;
• election-related data, and the manual or electronic systems in which it is stored;
• voice and data communication systems used for the election;
• prevention of election-related fraud, whether concerned with candidate and party registration, voting , vote counting and determination of results, or voter registration and compilation of voters lists;
• premises and staff of other state or non-government authorities who are perceived as having a symbolic or actual relationship with the election processes.
Thus security, in one form or another, is an issue from the time initial preparations for an election commence. Voting operations security measures discussed in this section need to be integrated into the overall security operations for the complete election process.
Voting Site Security
Security for the operation of voting sites can be a complex exercise, particularly in higher security risk environments, due to the dispersed nature of the locations which need to be secured. It is also costly, both in terms of providing secure equipment and materials and a safe environment in which voters may vote.
Thus there is a responsibility on security planners to ensure that cost-effective responses are provided to the level of risk assessed as surrounding the voting process.
What Are Adequate Security Levels?
Security is a high-cost exercise. In some respects the true cost may not always be apparent to electoral administrators. While the costs of measures to protect election material integrity (such as ballot boxes, special paper stock, voter identification cards) will generally be provided from election-specific funding, the costs of providing personal and property security may often be invisibly subsumed within operating budgets of other state agencies.
To promote efficiency and sustainability of election operations, it is advisable that a total project budgeting approach be taken, and such hidden costs be openly identified in election financial management systems.
Conducting thorough election security risk analyses allows a cost-effective targeting of security measures. While it is not possible to cover in this brief summary the range of alternative security measures that may be appropriate for different specific environments, some examples include:
• Is a police or military presence justified at all or some voting stations, or is the level of threat such that adequate security can be maintained by taking other measures like locating voting stations close to existing security force locations, or by merely maintaining operational liaison with security forces to ensure swift response to any disruption?
• Are expensive special security paper stocks required for ballot papers and other voting material, or can production controls and issuing integrity measures be implemented to provide adequate security through methods such as placing an official authorisation mark on voting material at the time of issue to a voter?
• Do election materials production and storage sites need to be guarded, or can adequate security controls be implemented by measures such as better staff integrity screening, physical site security (e.g., use of existing safes, locking and alarm mechanisms), and rigorous and auditable production and dispatch controls?
• Do security forces need to accompany election materials in transport, or can adequate safeguards be provided by confidential transport scheduling and routing, or using the presence of representatives of political participants to provide counter-balancing checks? Additionally, can transport of election material be minimised to reduce any potential security risk?
• Should ballot boxes be made of durable material, or do cheaper and more easily transportable bags or cardboard boxes provide adequate security?
• What measures are adequate to minimise voter fraud? Are special voter identification cards really necessary? Can existing identification documents be used, or can a combination of other measures (for example challenge procedures and ballot issue procedures) negate the need for any identity document to verify voting rights? Can adequate multiple voting controls be instituted through rigorous identity controls and accurate voters lists, rather than use of expensive additional measures such as marking of voters with security inks?
Low Security Risk Environments
There are countries for which the peaceful determination of continuation or transfer of powers of governance is an established tenet of societal behaviour. In such countries the large scale formal involvement of the state's security apparatus (police or military forces) in a security role for elections is likely to be limited (though their logistics and communications capabilities may be extensively used).
This limited security involvement will still require coordination and planning with the electoral administration.
Even in such societies, with little or no threat of election-related personal or property violation, open and transparent elections demand some level of administrative security measures to be in place to ensure the integrity of election materials production and handling, the protection of data, the safeguarding and secrecy of ballots, and the deterrence of fraud and manipulation.
High Security Risk Environments
At the other end of the spectrum, societies in or emerging from intense or violent conflict or characterised by a high degree of distrust among political participants may require very close integration of election administration and domestic or international security forces' activities to enable an election to be conducted with disruption kept to a minimal level and the integrity of election materials assured.
