The Question

This question is posted on behalf of an ACE user in Yemen. The question was originally posted in Arabic (please see below).

In case the Electoral Administration in an emerging democratic country like Yemen, decided to register the voters from the beginning through modern technologies, what would happen to the previous paper and electronic registers (records) from the legal, technical and documentary aspects? And in case they were approved to be cancelled or destroyed, would that require legal and legislative provisions?”

السؤال 

في حال أن قررت ادارة انتخابية في بلد ديمقراطي ناشئ كاليمن قيد وتسجيل الناخبين من جديد بواسطة التقنيات الحديثة، فما هو مصير سجلات الناخبين السابقة اليدوية والالكترونية من الناحية القانونية والفنية والوثائقية؟ وفي حال تم اقرار الغائها او اتلافها، فهل يتطلب ذلك نصوصا قانونية وتشريعية؟

Summary of responses

Several practitioners highlighted the importance of a firm legal foundation for introducing a new voter register, including regulations for archiving public documents. Examples such as that of the Australian Electoral Commission and Elections Canada were cited as institutions that have tackled similar issues of voter registration revision in recent years.

Several responses emphasized the importance of maintaining an archive of the old voter register in the context of creating a new one. This is important as part of overall knowledge management as well as for research and comparative analysis. The opinion was also expressed that an emerging democracy is well served by starting with a completely new voter register with clear legal provisions to ensure its completeness and accuracy.

The cases of Ghana, Guyana, Kenya, and Sudan were put forward as examples of a transition to a new voter register:

• Ghana: The importance of managing the timing of the transition from the old to the new voter register was underscored, in order to avoid complications come election time. This was an issue dealt with in Ghana in 2012 where, it was explained, a by-election fell between the annulment of the old register and the operationalization of the new.
• Guyana: After the 1997 general elections in Guyana the voter register was successfully challenged legally, and seen as lacking a clear legal framework.
• Kenya: The EMB in Kenya, it was pointed out, recently completed a bio-metric voter registration exercise, and the old register compiled two years earlier was no longer “legal for the purpose of voting in Kenya”. The electoral laws passed in 2011 provided for the registration of voters.
• Sudan: In the lead-up to the 2010 general elections in Sudan, a new voter register was built and the previous register used in 1986 was considered “obsolete” and as “an archive document”.

Examples of related ACE Articles and Resources

Encyclopaedia:

• Voter Registration as element of Legal Framework  
• Voter Registration topic area

Electoral Materials:

• Yemen: Overview of the Voter Registration System (2003) 

Names of contributors

• Carl Dundas
• Sellestine Kiuluku
• Mohamed Abdelrahim Mohamed Ahmed
• Mark Strong
• Jagoda Petrovic-Ukaj
• Bucumi Julius
• Bhojraj Pokharel
• Francisco Barrera
• Ahmed Gedel
• Neel Kantha Uprety
• Chantal Nzitonda
• Asi Shawkat

In the electoral environment in an emerging democracy, it is best to start with a completely new voters' register in order to ensure that the register is complete, accurate and wholly current. There should be clear new legal provisions to ground the voter registration exercise, with legal provisions (or regulations) governing related devices and procedures like bio-metric features for identification and the issuance of ID cards, (if required). Failure to have proper legal framework for all aspects of a voter registration exercise may lead to the voters' register being successfully challenged legally as happened in Guyana after the 1997 general elections in that country.

In Kenya the electoral body has just completed the Bio-metric voter registration exercise for Kenyan voters.  The registration was done afresh, though the country had a voter's register compiled 2 years ago through OMR system and was used during the Referendum in 2010.   The New Electoral laws passed in 2011 provided for the registration of voters.  The old register is not legal for the purpose of voting in Kenya.

This reply is posted on behalf of Mohamed Abdelrahim Mohamed Ahmed, member of the Practitioners' Network. 

A similar case took place in Sudan in 2010 General Elections. A new voter register built. The previous voters register, which was used in 1986 elections was considered obsolete; it was just an archive document. The Elections Act should deal with legal matters of such a case.

It is wise to have proper planning well before the first voter registration is taken up. Along with the choice of right technology, the issues like collecting and archiving the required data correctly and comprehensively during the first exercise should be adequately considered. This data base is always usable even after the law is amended later on because the law generally does not debar you from using the existing databases, if the same are correct and comprehensive.

However, if the data base created in the previous revision is not correct and not usable, it is wise to do a fresh exercise. For the sake of records, a copy of the list and the data must be preserved at least for some years as in the case of Sudan referred above. Such list may also be required in some pending elections petitions.

Any new information concerning the raising of a new register should be predicated on a firm legal base, so it would be vital extensive legislation covering all aspects of why, how, who and when was covered.  This should also ensure that the personal information being provided was for the specific and express purposes by which it was being collected - to create a voters register.   This legislation should also take into account the series of declarations required to be made by voters at time of registration.   Offering information and collecting inside this context are mutually inclusive with each action dependent upon the other.

If an Archive Act does not exist for such public documents, it would make sense to cover this in some form inside the new electoral registration legislation as archiving of documentation, be that electronic or paper (and there will always be plenty of paper inside registration) will always need to be taken into account.   Perhaps National Libraries have a role to play here and can provide future retrieval systems for the old registers.  These will always be sort after documents for scientific and social analysis by either Government or academics.

Good luck with you modernisation processes.  You might also like to try direct contact with organisations such as the Australian Electoral Commission, Elections Canada, etc as all of these organisations have tackled this issue over recent years.

Every experience in the electoral process is valuable and should always keep in focus the goal of a democracy and the development of a democratic relations, fair elections and respect the procedures prescribed by the Electoral law. Any document that is relevant to the development of a specific society regarding electoral process, must be  archived as sensitive material on a ordered place, to have adequate influence in a building  modern form of the electoral administration. 

Yemen people have deep reasons to do so. You must know that the political will prevails on every thing, even the legal aspects. The electoral environment leads the population, the government to take decisions to make an end to all challenges identified. The voter register may contain mistakes, errors, may not be accurate,....

There are countries which have periodic voter register  updated or start  start fresh voter registration. The consequences  have to follow in each case but it depends up on the will or decisions of the Government or legislature. The legal framework must be revisited to accommodate the new changes of procedure of constitution of the roll. Previous roll is not useless. It serves as archives  and it is important for the election knowledge management research. People or future generations will learn from it to make improvement of election management, without wasting time or hesitating. Archives are important for the everlasting or perennity of the institution's memory. The previous data may also serve as statistical reference when auditing the roll to see if it is credible or not. If you compare the previous roll, the population censor and the  population increasing rate for a given period, you may find that the roll is credible or not. Trends of population growth must meet scientific explanations or requirements in statistics.

The idea of destruction of archives or previous used material or technology is to be rejected. As i said above, archives are important and essential for knowledge management research, and there is a law guiding the regulation of archives, the period after which the selected archives may be destroyed. But for the election matter which is a very sensitive issue, all archives must be well kept for the future generations. As archivist, I recommend you not to destroy the election archives. It is a treasure for the country.

Julius Bucumi, Inspector of Justice

A sound legal basis is necessary for any Voters registration process. Such legal document has to well define and clarify on the eligibility of the voters, voters registration process and the agency to conduct this exercise. This law also needs to clearly mention and clarify the appeal and other legal processes. So all those questions you have raised needs to be addressed by that particular legislation. In this context i will suggest first create a strong legal basis so that it may not cause further complications in future. 

I also would like to strongly suggest to keep copy of old registration at the national archive center. This is a key historical document. 

La nueva técnica del registro de votantes,  no puede ni debe ser obstáculo, para implementar normas, regulaciones sobre cómo hacerlo mejor, pero sin que se pierda lo anterior

En la mayoría de los procesos cuando cambian de proceso  manuales a automáticos o electrónicos, se hace todo un ritual para mantener la información anterior o tradición,  en medios modernos, como escaneando los documentos,   (digitalización de imágenes), los datos anteriores tenerlos en medios magnéticos con las seguridades suficientes, esto para utilizarlos en comparación futuras, investigaciones, estadísticas, etc.

Es necesario modernizar la lista de sufrangentes, pues existen medios como la biometría que facilitan la identificación del votante,  el almacenamiento de datos personales pueden ser consultados de manera ágil y comparados con los documentos de identidad, que en lo posible deben venir desde el registro civil de las personas o desde los documentos de identidad que existen hoy día en gran cantidad de países-

Cordial saludo.

Your question was a legitimate one and must be resolved. Similar situation happen in Ghana were New Biometric Register was compiled in march 24,2012 to May 7,2012. In Ghana the Constitutional Instrument (CI) which gave the ultimate powers for the old register was annulled by parliament and the new CI was put to use for the new register. The challenged was at what point would the new ID cards be used. Many people were disturbed as the voters possess two ID cards. Many organizations refuse to recognize the New voter ID until elections were conducted. It was after the elections that the new ID cards was then accepted by the public. This the old ID continued to be relevant not for voting purposes but for identification. In the middle of this crises a parliamentarian passed away and a by election was to be conducted to replaced the demised MP the problem arises which voter ID card was to be used as parliament has already annulled the old register and by extension the old Voter ID. As the EC was preparing for the by-election a concerned Ghanaian took the EC to court to stop the election as the new register was not yet out for public use and yet parliament has annulled the old Register. The concerned Ghanaian warn the case and the EC was told not to conduct the by election until the new voter Register was published and put to use. In our scenario in Ghana at what time do you publish the new register and at time do you annulled the old register.This is very important  in the electoral process. The old Voter ID automatically phased out. AHMED M.GEDEL

I generally agree with many other professionals who have generously contributed to this issue. A fate, old and erroneous electoral role should not be the basis for creating a reliable and updated electoral roll. More importantly we are moving towards e-democracy hence I suggest to go for creating a photo-biometric based brand new electoral roll for legitimate and credible elections. Young and fledgling democracy should not delay in modernizing the roll. I strongly suggest to discard the old, thug and bulky electoral roll having numerous errors that could challenges the genuinely democratic elections. If there is no provision in the existing law to discard the old electoral role to replace with new, a provision in the new law could be made.  

 Pour le cas de Yemen , je ne soutiens pas la destruction des archives ou matériel utilisé, par ailleurs il faut les garder car  il servira dans l'avenir aux génération future

يعتمد بالدرجة الاولى على:

مبدأ عرض السجلات للاعتراضات والتعديل للجمهور بشكل عام ( ناخبين مراقبين مرشحين كل من له علاقة ومصلحة انتخابية بالاطلاع و الاعتراض)

في حال وجود هذا المبدأ او المرحلة في القانون( النشر والاعتراض - كما تسمى في بعض القوانين) فان هذا يكفي لاجراء عملية انشاء سجل جديد:

مع الاخذ بعين الاعتبار المدة الزمنية  والامكانية للوصول من لهم حق التسجيل والنتخاب و الترشح) للوصول اليهم وامكانية التسجيل من اية بقعة في العالم

- قد يكون من المناسب الاحتفاظ على السجل القديم والبدء في انشاء جديد  لمواجه طارئ او في حالة عدم توفر الوقت الامكانيات للوصول الى نسبة تسجيل معيارية مقبولة. وذلك بتميز خانة على تسجيل سجل.

وجود نص قانوني يعتمد على الطبيعة القانونية للجنة الانتخابات او الجهة التي تقوم فعليا بتجهيز السجل الانتخابي ويكون مناط بها الاحتفاظ بالسجل وتحديثه ودور المجتمع لقبول السجل والاعتراض عليه قبل الشروح في مرحلة الترشح.