This section covers integrity issues related to the administration of the electoral process. Potential integrity issues are identified for each step of the process, from organizing election management to publishing official results. Also covered are mechanisms that may be used to address these issues. The steps examined include: election management; voting system; districting; election calendar planning; voter education; voter registration; registration of parties, candidates and lobbyists; the electoral campaign, including problems related to political financing; voting; counting; complaints and appeals; and the announcement of official results.
Despite its technical nature, election administration can become politicized. Control and manipulation of the electoral apparatus are among the tools most often used by non democratic governments to ensure their continued success at the polls. In addition, electoral administrators themselves may be suspected of acting in the interests of the government, a particular party or a sector of society.
Inexperienced election commissions may also be suspect. Their members may be little known or untested. Seasoned politicians and parties may take advantage of this situation.
Distrust of the electoral apparatus persists in many countries and is one of the main reasons for instituting extra safeguards, particularly monitoring by political parties and civil society. Distrust may also justify changing the structure and management of an electoral administration, and has provided the impetus for creating independent commissions. In the words of one commentator:
This distrustful attitude towards leviathan controlling of the organization of elections explains today’s consensus on the need to have, at the core of election management, an independent election commission, as well as . . . independent election management bodies in new democracies. [1]
If participants see the electoral process as being administered by a partisan group or manipulated for partisan purposes, turnout will be low or the election results will be challenged.
For an election to be perceived as free and fair, it must be administered honestly and neutrally. A well-organized, credible electoral administration can dissuade those opposed to the process from undertaking fraudulent or discriminatory actions, and can in turn build trust in elections and electoral institutions.
NOTES
[1] Schedler, Andreas, “Democracy by Delegation: The Path-Dependent Logic of Electoral Reform in Mexico,” paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, Georgia, September 2–5, 1999, p. 7.
