Voter Registration

Topic IndexCivil Register - Disadvantages

The civil registry has a number of disadvantages:

It is very costly to establish and maintain. It makes a voters’ list easy to generate but the registry itself requires spending considerable amount of resources. Despite this, for reasons that typically have little to do with elections, the government may have decided to maintain a civil registry. If so, it is logical to use the information in the registry for the purpose of compiling a voters’ list;
It is generally based on a national citizen identification number, allowing various databases to be linked together. Countries that do not use national citizen identification numbers would find it far more difficult to create a civil registry with a high level of currency, accuracy and completeness;
In many countries, the civil registry was developed from church registers, and earlier versions were paper-based. Civil registries today tend to be computerised, enabling civil authorities to take fuller advantage of the data management possibilities offered by such lists. A civil registry that can be used effectively and efficiently for producing a voters’ list requires a highly developed computing infrastructure to manage the database, for the civil authority as well as the election management authority;
In a civil registry database, a lot of care must be undertaken in maintaining the data needed for the management of elections and the production of the voters’ list. Any name added to the database must automatically be assigned to the correct administrative division. The system thus requires the proper software and support staff to manage the development of the computing infrastructure;
In some countries, a civil registry conjures up thoughts of an Orwellian Big Brother, fuelling aversion to the creation of such a list;
Similarly, some people fear an inappropriate use of centralised databases, such as a civil registry. Some of their concerns are that the data could be used for unauthorised commercial purposes or that there are insufficient restrictions on data exchanges between government bodies;
A civil registry makes the election management authority dependent on the government for the production and maintenance of the voters’ list. Where opposition parties, civil society groups or the electorate are generally sceptical or distrustful of the government, their scepticism will extend to the election management authority and the voters’ list. It is often important for the election management authority to have, and to be able to demonstrate, independence from the government. To a certain degree, civil registry systems undermine this independence by making the election management authority dependent on government bodies in order to fulfill some of its primary functions. If there is general trust in the integrity of the government, then this might not matter. However, if there is little trust in the government, the use of a civil registry system that is perceived to be of low quality and possibly biased in favour of government supporters may undermine the legitimacy of the electoral management authority; and
If the ministry responsible for maintaining the civil registry is either unwilling or unable to keep it current, accurate or complete to acceptable, pre-determined standards, the election management authority is forced to start with poor data as the basis for the voters' list.

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Voter Registration