In many countries, people live in multiple jurisdictions, each of which may hold elections. For example, someone may live within the jurisdiction of a municipality, a county or regional authority, a provincial or state authority, a national authority, and in some instances even a super-national (or international) authority.
To conduct an election, each jurisdiction must have a list of eligible voters. It is inefficient for each to develop and maintain its own separate list; doing so would involve significant duplication of effort, although some jurisdictions go ahead despite this. But in fact election management authorities in places where there are multiple jurisdictions have a range of options open to them:
- Separate data collection, separate lists: Each jurisdiction collects and maintains its own voter registration data, without data-sharing arrangements with other jurisdictions. In this approach, the different levels of government function relatively autonomously but inefficiently, with considerable duplication of effort. There may be valid reasons for the approach. For example, if each jurisdiction uses a periodic list of electors and conducts comprehensive registration at the outset of an election campaign, it has little to gain from data sharing with another jurisdiction particularly one on a different electoral cycle, with a voters’ list that might be almost as outdated as the previous list of the jurisdiction now embarking on a registration exercise;
- Data sharing, separate lists: The jurisdictions share data on voters, particularly changes in status (e.g. people who have reached voting age, changed addresses or died). At the same time each jurisdiction maintains independent control and authority over the development and updating of its voters’ list. This approach is more likely to be followed, if at least one of the jurisdictions maintains a continuous voters’ list, but the jurisdictions’ electoral cycles do not coincide. The arrangement resembles the data-sharing partnership that an election management authority may have with any other public agency. Because each election management authority is responsible for conducting elections in its own jurisdiction according to the schedule of its legislative body, each continues to keep control over the development and maintenance of its voters’ list.
- Data sharing, common list: The jurisdictions share information fully and maintain a common voters’ list. Various circumstances favour a single voters’ list for use in multiple jurisdictions. One is a constitutional provision mandating a particular level of government to develop and maintain the voters’ list for more than one jurisdiction. For example, in some countries responsibility for the voters’ list falls to the state (sub-national) government, while in others it falls to the national government. A common list may also make sense if elections are held for positions in different jurisdictions at the same time. But the situation becomes more complicated if the jurisdictions have differing voter eligibility criteria. If so, the necessary information must be recorded and election workers must be trained to issue different ballots to people meeting the different criteria.
