Basic Issues
Varying methods of treatment of voters who are not found on the voters list at a voting station can have a marked affect on:
• the equity of the election process;
• Potential disruption in the voting station;
• Voting operations costs.
In general, people do not turn out to vote unless they genuinely believe that they are entitled to be part of the process. Methods for including in the election process, in some manner, all who turn out to vote, facilitate building democratic processes.
Apart from this ideal, there is always the possibility that voters are not on the voters list at the voting station because of an administrative error, or because they have come to vote at the wrong voting station. At the very least the opportunity to overcome such errors should be provided.
Facilities available and procedures used for persons not on the voters list attempting to vote will generally be dependent on the voter registration legal framework and the manner of maintaining the certified voters list, particularly on the methods adopted for it’s revision.
Reasons for Omission from Voters Lists
Voters may not be found on the voters list in a voting station for a number of reasons, including:
• the voter has correctly registered and is entitled to be on the voters list for that voting station, but due to administrative error the voter's information has been recorded incorrectly on the certified voters list, or has been omitted in preparing the voters list for the voting station;
• the voter is correctly registered, but on another area’s list;
• the voter has not registered;
• the voter has been officially and accurately removed from the certified voters list by due process;
• the voter has had an application for registration rejected.
Service to Omitted Voters
So as not to unduly delay the voter queue, voters with such problems would be better directed to the voting station manager or officials with specific voter information duties, rather than being fully investigated by staff conducting eligibility checks and issuing voting materials.
Wherever possible, proactive questioning by officials controlling voter queues and voting station entry should attempt to identify voters with more easily recognisable problems, such as attending the wrong voting station, before the voter has waited for too long in the queue (see Crowd and Queue Control). A map of the voting station area and its adjacent voting station areas placed at the voting station entrance will also help voters in determining immediately if they have come to the incorrect voting station.
Voters who cannot be found on the voters list are as deserving of service in the voting station as other voters. In providing this service, voting officials should make every effort to assist voters in determining if they are in fact eligible to vote, whether at that voting station or elsewhere.
It may not be possible to fully investigate all such voters at the voting station itself; however, the basic steps listed in the next section should be followed by voting station officials to attempt to determine the voter's status.
Investigative Measures
In dealing with apparently unregistered voters who cannot be found on the voters list by voter eligibility checking voting station officials (see Determination of Eligibility to Vote), voting station managers and information staff should pursue a thorough line of investigation by questioning voters to establish if there is any basis for their belief that they are eligible to vote. Questioning may be effectively pursued in this order:
Determine whether the voter is qualified for and did apply to register on the voters register for the election.
Establish the voter's address for the purposes of registration and assess whether this is within the area that would allow the voter to vote at that voting station, or in another area.
If it is within the voting station's area, further investigation may be required; if not, the voter should be directed to the correct voting station (or if allowable under the voting system, directed on how to cast an absentee ballot at that voting station or at any special voting stations set up for voting day absentee voting). Voting station managers should be provided with maps of surrounding electoral units, voting station areas and lists of voting station locations for this purpose.
If the voter claims to be living in and having registered for the relevant voting station area, further investigation of the voters list entries to determine if the voter's details have been incorrectly entered in the list should be undertaken.
Potential misspellings and reversals of or omissions from name or address information should be investigated. If the voter is found on the list with incorrect details, equitable systems would allow the voter still to vote, having provided an oral, or, to give greater integrity, a written declaration that they are in fact the person represented by the incorrect list entry.
If a voter claiming to be living in the voting station area still cannot be found on the list, procedures for unregistered voters will need to be implemented. There are wide variations in the basis and content of such procedures. Possible alternatives are discussed below.
The alternatives available will very much depend on the legal framework for the certified voters list, whether it is a closed document which must remain unchanged following its certification for use in the election to the close of the election period, or whether it is open to further revision under certain defined circumstances during the voting period.
Where permanent, continuous voter registration systems are maintained by electoral authorities, it is preferable that facilities should be made available in the voting station for persons not found on the voters list to complete a voter registration form.
This will enable their participation in future elections, even if there are no voting day registration provisions to allow them to vote at the current election. In any situation, information on how to register should be provided to these persons.
Denial of Vote
The simplest administrative solution, yet one that does not encourage participation or accessibility, is to deny the person a vote. Where certified voters lists are closed documents, this can often be the option taken. However, while administratively simple, it has a number of negative features on both equity and operational grounds:
• it provides no safety net to deal with administrative errors in compilation of voters lists.
The onus is on the voters to have ensured that their registration has been correctly processed. This is not a fully effective method, even where provisions for compilation of voters’ lists allow for public inspection, close to voting day, of the certified voter lists by voters, and amendment of defects found.
• It does not admit any possibility of error in production/printing of voters lists used in voting stations.
• Particularly where registration systems are not of high quality, or not well understood by the public in general, use of this method may lead to problems at the voting station in controlling voters denied a vote.
Where voters not found on the list are denied a vote, at the very least the voter should be referred to an electoral management body information officer for further investigation. This will help in dealing with electors who may be registered elsewhere.
Implementation of telephone systems by which voting station managers can access a central voters list information bureau to check on a voter's registration status should only be undertaken with extreme caution.
Experience with such systems has often been that they become easily overloaded, thus tying up voting station phone lines and voting station officials' time in attempting to make contact.
Issuing of Voting Certificates
More equitable solutions would at least allow voters an opportunity to determine if they had been omitted from the voters list because of administrative error and an opportunity to redress this.
Where voter registration is a function under the control of electoral authorities, such solutions would allow a person omitted from the voters list in error to obtain on voting day a certificate from the electoral management or voter registration body attesting to the error and, on presentation of this at the appropriate voting station, to be allowed to vote.
Where voters lists are extracts of civil register data, civil registries would preferably remain open throughout all hours of voting to enable voters who believe that they have been incorrectly omitted from the voters list to check records held at the civil registry, and be allowed to vote at their correct voting station on presentation of a similar certificate issued by the civil registry.
It would enhance transparency to allow representatives of parties or candidates running in the election to observe the issue of such certificates, whether by electoral authorities or by a civil registry.
Such certificates should be:
• authenticated, when presented by the voter, by the voting station manager or another senior voting station official;
• Surrendered by the voter to the voters list checking officials;
• Maintained securely by the voters list checking officials for use in close of voting reconciliations
It may also be useful for officials checking voters list to maintain a supplementary list of those voters not on the original list but who prove their eligibility to vote on voting day.
Under such systems, these voters, after establishing their entitlement to vote through presentation of the required certificate, would be issued voting material and vote in the normal fashion.
Use of Provisional or Tendered Ballots
An effective means of handling possible administrative errors in compilation of voters lists, for both voters and voting station officials is to allow a provisional or tendered ballot to any voter who cannot be found on the voters list and who claims to be living in the area covered by the voters list for the voting station.
Under such systems, the voter's ballot will be enveloped with a declaration of relevant details by the voter, kept separate from other ballots, and after the close of voting the eligibility of the voter will be checked against voter registration records.
If the voter is then found to have been eligible to vote in the election, even though not found on the voters list for that voting station on voting day, the voter's ballot will be included in the count.
There are both advantages and disadvantages in using this method. Major advantages include:
• accessibility to all voters wishing to vote;
• reduced risk of disruption in the voting station;
• greater accuracy in checking voter eligibility in such doubtful cases than that available in the pressured atmosphere of the voting station;
• maintenance of voting integrity.
The ballots of these voters are only included in the count if it is established following checking of the registration records that the voter was eligible to vote.
Thus, the risks of election challenges on the basis of ineligibility of ballots completed by voters not found on the list are avoided.
Disadvantages of this method are mainly related to the increased complexity inherent in using such a system, and the additional resources required for implementation. These would include:
• provision of special materials, e.g., envelopes and other documents for recording voter information;
• additional training of staff in issuing provisional ballots;
• additional controls required for voting material;
• additional staff expenses in checking the eligibility of these voters prior to determining if their ballots should be admitted to counts;
• possible delays in finalisation of counts due to the time taken for such checks.
It is important that where systems of provisional or tendered ballots are implemented, these ballots are later assessed for eligibility and, if eligible, counted.
It has been the practice in some environments that the tendered ballot is a useful method of eliminating a source of stress on voting day, but it is too difficult to undertake later full investigations to determine if the voter was eligible to vote, and thus these voters' ballots are ignored during counts. Such an attitude is dangerous, both to the integrity and reputation of the electoral management body, and also in terms of voter reaction if it were learned that tendered or provisional ballots had not been properly examined.
In determining eligibility of provisional ballots to be included in the count, strict guidelines are required as to what administrative errors, or other conditions, must be satisfied.
These methods still will only allow the admission to counts of ballots from voters who have registered but have been affected by administrative error in the compiling or production of voters lists.
Voting Day Registration
Voter accessibility can be greatly enhanced if there are facilities for voters to register to vote on voting day itself. Provision of such facilities will depend on the legal frameworks for allowing voters lists to remain open during voting.
This method can make planning and resourcing of voting station activities difficult, particularly if relatively low proportions of the estimated voting age population have registered to vote prior to the election. It, therefore, needs careful examination of its effects on the administration of the voting process before being considered.
It can also be a process of less transparency and integrity as it does not allow for the checks, through objection or revision proceedings, which would be normal in high integrity registration systems.
Where implemented, systems allowing voting day registration will require some specific procedures in voting stations themselves.
The exact nature of the procedures will depend on whether the registration is done in the voting station or at an office of the electoral management body.
Registration by Declaration in Voting Station
A simple means of allowing voters not found on the voters list to vote is by means of a declaration by the voter allowing on-the-spot registration in the voting station. This would require the voter to:
• produce documents proving identity and address of residence;
• make a sworn declaration, administered by the voting station manager, that they are eligible to vote at that voting station.
An additional measure of integrity can be applied to such declarations if:
• the declaration is required to be witnessed by a voter or voters on the voters list at that voting station;
• party or candidate representatives may object to the eligibility of such voters and have these objections officially recorded, with such challenges being required to be taken into account in any recount or judicial application to have the election overturned.
The voter is then issued a certificate of entitlement to vote by the voting station manager ; on surrendering of the certificate to the appropriate voting station official, a ballot is issued in the normal manner and the ballot is deposited in the ballot box and counted with all other ballots.
A supplementary list of such voters should be maintained, and the certificates retained for use in voting material reconciliations following close of voting.
There are a number of advantages to this method in its simplicity of operation; however, it may raise questions about election integrity, particularly in environments where there is some history of election manipulation or where voters do not have a high level of knowledge of the requirements of voter registration.
Its advantages would include:
• Better access for all voters wishing to vote. (This may be limited by the strictness of any requirements for witnessing of declarations required for voting day registration.)
• Reduced risk of disruption in the voting station, since voters not found on the voters list may still have an opportunity to vote.
• Simplicity of administration, both in the issuing and counting of ballots, requiring little in the way of additional materials or processes.
However, the disadvantages in terms of perceptions of election integrity can also be substantial:
• The onus is put on party or candidate representatives in the voting station to issue objections to the voter's entitlement to vote, rather than the eligibility of all such voters being checked officially by electoral authorities and subject to public scrutiny.
• Ballots of such voters may be admitted to counts without any prior official check or opportunity for public challenge of the voter's eligibility to vote.
This is a weaker system of control than that which applies to other voters and may raise questions about election integrity if there are substantial numbers of such voters.
• The only redress available is through official challenges to the count or judicial review of whether the election should be overturned. This can be a less effective method than determining voter eligibility before admission of ballots to any count.
Whether such a method would be appropriate would depend on careful analysis of the level of risk of manipulation of voting that it may engender. If societal mores are such that the risk is very low, it can be a service-oriented and cost-effective manner of dealing with unregistered voters.
It will also work with higher integrity if voting stations cater to small numbers of voters from distinct local communities, where party or candidate representatives and voting station managers are more likely to be aware of who is eligible to register to vote in that area.
Higher integrity could be satisfied by having these ballots enveloped with the registration certificate and further confirmation of eligibility obtained before accepting the voter's ballot for counting.
Voting Day Registration at Electoral Authority Office
Alternatively, voters not found on the list could be directed to electoral management body offices to apply for voting day registration. As for registration in a voting station, the voter would produce identity and other documentation normally required for voter registration. It would enhance transparency by allowing representatives of parties or candidates running in the election to observe these proceedings.
If registration requirements are satisfied, the voter would be issued with a certificate which must be presented at the relevant voting station to evidence eligibility to vote.
These certificates should be surrendered to the voting station manager, the voter's name would normally be entered on a supplementary list of voters, and arrangements made to issue voting material to the voter.
Similar advantages and disadvantages as those for voting day registration in a voting station apply.
Reconciliation of Material
Where voting day registration or provisional voting may occur, care must be taken when the quantity of liable voting material issued to voters is reconciled to voters marked on the voters list as having voted to include those voters registering on voting day or issued provisional ballots.
