This question is posted by ACE on behalf of Andy Harris.

I'm doing some background research on voter registration in non-Western contexts, and am interested in which bodies do voter registration in a country. For instance, in most U.S. states, citizen groups and NGOs can help citizens register and submit their applications to the election body. In contrast, in Kenya, the election commission is the only body legally allowed to register citizens. How does voter registration occur in the contexts you know? Is the electoral commission the only body that can legally register people, or can citizen groups/NGOs undertake registration and submit applications to the electoral commission? Anybody know of systematic info on this?

Summary of Replies:

Most of the countries referenced by practitioners gave their national EMBs sole legal authority to register citizens. The consensus was that countries that do otherwise are outliers. One practitioner noted that democracies with weak institutions can benefit from working with NGOs in the voter registration process. By doing so, the EMBs can borrow the credibility of more trusted NGOs.

In Cameroon, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Zambia, the national EMBs have the sole authority to register voters. One practitioner noted that some European countries use an ID card registry run through other government branches, which registry is typically automatic. The example given was that when a person changes address, they might go through the local police, who then relay that information to the national EMB. Another practitioner said that in most Latin American countries, only national EMBs can conduct voter registration.

In Ecuador, the National Electoral Council draws information from the Civil Registry when updating the electoral roll. The roll is inflated by people leaving the country without documenting the moves; they appear on the roll as absentee ballots. Under the new Constitution, immigrants to Ecuador can vote in elections after 5 years’ legal residence. In Nigeria, state EMBs are required by law to use the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s register for local elections. Voters register at INEC offices, and new technology has made it more difficult to circumvent this. NGOs cannot register voters but can only conduct voter education campaigns. The law does allow the INEC to use ad-hoc staff for registration under supervision by EMB staff.

In Cameroon, continuous voter registration is open from 1 January to 31 August, when consolidation of the electoral roll begins. Registration is conducted by a commission that includes local staff of the EMB and representatives of the Mayor, the Ministry of the Interior, and political parties. Citizens must use their National Identity Card to register and must be at least 20 years old by the date of the election. When the register has been in place for long enough and is deemed to have lost its credibility, the registry is destroyed and a new registry is created. All formerly registered voters are required to register again for the new roll.

In New Zealand, voters register through the Registrar of Electors, which is staffed by the national EMB. Anyone can help anyone else fill out their registration form and deliver it, but the application must go through the registrar. The electoral roll is updated with information from other government agencies, and the EMB contacts registered voters to confirm that information. If a voter cannot be contacted, their registration status is changed to “Dormant.” If the status remains “Dormant” for 3 years, that voter’s name is removed from the electoral roll. There is no national ID card or number and no biometric registration system other than signatures. New Zealand has voting-at-large and uses a General Roll and a Māori Roll (where indigenous people may choose to register instead). Registration is required but not enforced, only encouraged. A practitioner noted that New Zealand’s government is rated as one of the world’s least corrupt, and said that their system may not be suitable for countries with less trust in their institutions.

In Senegal, the register is permanent and is updated from 1 February to 31 July by local administrative commissions composed of a president, the local mayor or their representative, and representatives of political parties. The Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA) supervises these commissions and appoints a controller. Voters use biometric ID cards to register and receipts are given in the event of any registration errors. Voters omitted or removed from the register may appeal to the President of the District Court. 

In India, government employees are paid an honorarium to staff polling stations and to oversee the registration process at increasingly centralized levels of authority, from local to provincial. These employees work with representatives of political parties, Village Councils, and urban municipal wards to ensure transparency and accuracy. Voters may also register online. Local elections are conducted by a State Election Commission. These commissions often use the national EMB’s registry but are not required to.Re: Voter registration authorities

Contributing Members:

• Julius Choh Mbuh
• Amadou Tidjani Abdou
• Víctor Hugo Ajila Mora
• Francisco Morales Gomez
• Ibrahim Rabiu Hassan
• Peter Brent
• Nchimunya Michelo Silenga
• Dr. Noor Mohammad
• Robert Marsh
• Charles Obot
• Ababacar Fall

Voter registration is a crucial activity of the electoral process which in many ways determines the outcome of an election. In fact voter registration constitutes the nucleus of a credible or flawed election. Consequently a flawed voter registration is the foundation of a flawed election given that one of the principle of a credible election is ‘’one man, one registration, one voter!’’  It cannot be gainsaid that the credibility of the process is as good as the credibility of the body charged with carrying out the exercise.  As already raised in the question, the bodies charged with voter registration vary from one country to the other. This is largely determined by the laws of the country and also the level of trust the bodies enjoy from the electors in particular and electoral stakeholders in general.  On this premise, I would like to present the voter registration process in Cameroon, which in many ways is a combination of the two examples.  

In Cameroon, voter registration is carried out by a mixed commission, comprising a Chairperson who is the Local (Council) Branch Head of the EMB, a representative of the Divisional Officer (Local Representative of the Minister of the Interior), a representative of the Mayor, representatives of all the political parties operating in the constituency, and Local Staff of the EMB (Electoral Registration Kit Operators).  Worthy of note is the fact that Cameroon runs a continuous voter registration system that starts on the 1^st of January and ends on the 31^st of August every non-election year, and during an election year, registration ends on the date of publication of the presidential decree convening the electors to the polls for a pending election. The period between the 31^st of August and the 31^st of December is used by the EMB for the consolidation and treatment of data, publication of the Provisional Voter Register (PVR), and the Final Voter Register (FVR) on the 31^st of December.

Voter registration in Cameroon takes two forms. The regular form is the annual revision of voters register, which entails entering the names of first time registrants, i.e., those who have never registered before, modifying the information of old registrants who have relocated to other areas (changed addresses), deleting the names of deceased persons, as well as persons who have loss the right to vote such as those convicted by courts (in Cameroon convicts and ex-convicts are not allowed to vote).  The other form is the recompilation of the electoral register. This comes when the register has been in use for a long time and deemed to have lost some of its credibility. The register would be destroyed and all the qualified citizens would be required to register anew on the new voters rolls of the country.

The mixed commission carries out registration both at fixed points (Local EMB Office) and itinerant points (markets, Churches, event grounds, schools, etc). The responsibility of the commission members is to control and vet the qualification of persons to be entered on the electoral register. Cameroon has a National Identity Card which is the only document that allows any Cameroonian from the age of twenty (20) years, or who will turn 20 years on the date of a pending election to be registered on the electoral register. Because the function of the members of the commission is honorary (not paid), all of them may not be present all the times that the commission is out for registration, the commission however must periodically scrutinize and validate the data collected before it is forwarded to the central server. After the consolidation and treatment (verification and correction of errors) of the data collected, the PVR is printed and published for verification and necessary corrections by political parties, registrants, and other stakeholders.  The corrected PVR is forwarded to the National Centre for Election Biometrics for the corrections to be introduced in the data base, and the eventual production of the FVR as well as the printing of voters’ Cards, which are sent to the Mixed Commission at the base which by a decision of the Local Head of the EMB is transformed in to the Commission for the Distribution of Voter’ Cards.

Disputes relating to the registration of voters on the electoral list are referred to the Electoral Board (Commission) of the EMB for hearing and decision. Where the Electoral Board rejects the petition, the aggrieved voter can lodged an appeal before the competent Appeal Court of the jurisdiction of the applicant.

It can safely be concluded that while different actors intervene in the voter registration process in Cameroon, only the Commission aforementioned is mandated by the electoral law of the country to carry out voter registration.

En fait, la loi électorale qui définit tout ou presque tout sur le processus électoral se doit d’être consensuelle, autrement dit son élaboration doit inclure toutes les parties prenantes aux élections, c'est à dire les parties politiques, les acteurs de la société civile activifs dans les questions électorales, l'administration en charge des questions électorales au sein de l'appareil d’État, la commission en charge des élections qu’elles soient permanentes ou non...

Ainsi donc l'inscription des électeurs doit être prévue dans cette loi, une façon de dire que l'inscription sur les listes électorales traitée dans cette loi a des chances d’être murement étudiée, le risque d'arbitraire  donc minimisé. Si des insuffisances sont  dans les faits constatées par une des parties à l'élaboration de cette loi, il lui pourrait être loisible de provoquer des assises afin de prendre en compte les éventuels amendements.

En somme cette opération doit se faire dans un cadre légal et par voie démocratique en prenant en compte les réalités sociales, politiques, économiques, financières, géographiques...

Por la importancia del registro electoral y el temor a que sea vulnerable a alteraciones o irregularidades, los países de América Latina han confiado esa tarea a los propios organismos electorales, los cuales tienen cada vez, mayores facultades para coordinar con otras instituciones estatales para la recolección, revisión y depuración de la información de votantes, por ejemplo el registro civil de personas.

En Ecuador, es el organismo electoral (CNE) el que tiene la obligación de hacer y manejar el registro de votantes en coordinación con el Registro Civil.

En contextos de democracias con institucionalidad débiles, se requiere de un pacto general, amplio, para permitir que además de los EMBs puedan otras organizaciones de la sociedad, como ONGs, aportar información para realizar el registro de votantes. Esto se basa en la confianza y credibilidad que puedan aportar a la tarea.

Saludos cordiales

EL REGISTRO O PADRON ELECTORAL es uno de los instrumentos más delicados que conforman el proceso elecionario, el que permite otorgar y garantizar el ejercicio de los derechos ciudadanos en la elección de sus dignatarios, en mi país Ecuador Sudamerica, la elaboración, actualización de nuevos ciudadanos para ejercer el derecho a elegir, al igual que la depuración del mismo se encuentra a cargo del organismo electoral central, que se denomina Consejo Nacional Electoral.

El Registro Electoral como respónsabilidad de este organismo electoral, se encuentra alimentado por los datos que le otorga el Registro Civil, en donde se encuentran los datos personales de filiación civil, edad, nacimiento y registro de recien nacidos, al igual que los fallecimientos, estos datos son alimentados en forma permanente al Registro Electoral, que permitan contar con el numero y la identidad de los ciudadanos que s eencuentran aptos para el sufragio.

Además existe otra fuente de información que alimenta el Registro Electoral, y se trata de los datos de ciudadanos que migran a otros paises, un fenómeno que en el actual momento politico se ha convertido un diaspora permanente no solo en Ecuador, sino en la maoría de paises latinuamericanos, africanos y de otras latitudes; ste registro es parcialmente verificable, ya que, una buena parte de compatriotas salen en forma cladestina del país, sin dejar rastro de su ausencia y retorno, la mayoria de ellos viajan por medios que impiden el conocer su identidad, en la mayoria de casos sin retorno, lo cual infla el padron electoral con electores ausentes, que no ejercen su derecho al voto; por esta consideración tambien los resultados electorales luego de los escrutinios aparece el ausentismo como un rango elevado, que se confunden en varios casos con fallecimientos, lo cual impide contar con una registro electoral depurado en su totalidad.

Otro elemento que se suma al registro electoral, se refiere a los extranjeros, que de confordad a la nueva Carta Constitucional que se encuentra vigente desde el año 2008, pueden ejerecre el derecho al sufragio luego de 5 años de permanencia legal en el papís, y que soliciten en forma expresaincluirse en el registro electoral, d elos cuales sin ser un numero considerable, tambien alimentan este instrumento electoral.

De todas maneras debe existir un organismo que goce de autonomía absoluta para la eleaboración del registro electoral, toda vez que en jurisdicciones electorales pequeñas cantones y provincias la diferencia de votos para elegir a un dignatario local o regional, se ha constatado que resulta ganador un candidato por pocos votos incluso que no llegal a una decena de votos de diferencia.

Nigeria is a sub-saharan country, where the responsibility of registering eligible voters is by law vested solely with INEC the EMB of the country. This responsibility entails the maintenance and updating of the voters register to be in line with global best practices. The law envisaged Continuous Voter Registration exercise wherein any voter that has attained the legal age of registering can go to the nearest INEC office to register and be included in the nations register of voters.

Even States' EMBs (under the Federal Government) that are by law tasked with the responsibility of conducting local council elections are duty bound to use the register compiled by INEC for their activities.

NGOs and civil society groups cannot register prospective voters, but they can help with advocacy and enlightenment campaigns for voter education. Furthermore, the level of technology deployed in the the registration process up to the smart-card features of the voters card has made it almost prohibitive for NGOs to be able to render the services of registering voters.

I believe the USA is an outlier in this regard (and others in the electoral arena!)- whether in the context of Western or all democracies. As a rule the EMB has a monopoly on active voter-initiated registration (although in for example many European countries they use the ID card/civil register, which is run by other arms of the government, but this is done automatically.For example when a citizen moves address they might contact the local police, and the information makes it way to the EMB).

In Zambia, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) is the only body mandated to conduct voter registration. It will determine by Statutory Order:

The commencement of VR and when to temporarily suspend the exercise for purposes of updating the voters’registers where by-elections occur.

Voter registration in India is done by the Election Commission of India. ECI deploys government staff for this activity and gives some honorarium for the extra work of VR done by them. At the Polling Station level the official designated for this work is called Booth Level Officer (BLO). S/he is a local government official and is given an honoraria on the annual basis. BLO enquires and sends her/his report about veracity of the applications for registration to Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) who is again a government official. Appeals against any order of the ERO lie with the District Election Officer (DEO) and a second appeal lies with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the state/province. 

Cooperation of stakeholders in VR operration is extremely valuable. Two copies of the draft roll are provided to the recognised political parties and their cooperation is sought. Two copies of the final list is also given to them aafter the VR operation is over. Political parties have been requested to appoint Booth Level Agents (BLA) who works in coordination with the BLOs. In addition, the draft voter list is read in the open meeting of the Village Council (we call it Gaon Sabha) and in the urban municipal wards to identify those eligible but missing from the list, dead or migrated voters. On the basis of this exercise applications for inclusion or deletion are collected and disposed off.

Cooperation of Resident Welfare Societies is also sought in assisting the BLO in making this exercise comprehensive. The list is on the website of the Commission and one can file application for online registration through the National Voter Service Portal (NVSP).

Elections of the Gaon Sabhas and municipal bodies are conducted by another Commission created in every state and many of them borrow the voter data created by the ECI and then generate GS wise or ward wise list from that database. There is thinking to mandate one registration and the same data to be used by ECI and the State Election Commissions.  

New Zealand (a "Western" nation) operates continuous registration.  Registration is by statutory declaration (a signed form, or online equivalent) delivered to Registrars of Electors, who are staff of the Electoral Commission.  The national roll database also receives data from immigration, civil registration (births, deaths and marriages) and other government agencies.  This data is used to help identify people who are, or become, ineligible and to encourage people identified as not registered or whose registered address may be out of date to register or update their registration.

Anyone could give the form to an eligible voter and encourage them to register, and then deliver the completed and signed form to the registrar, but the application would ultimately be handled by the registrar.  It sounds like this may be similar to the US situation.

There are periodic update campaigns, where mail is sent to registered electors to confirm their registration details, most notably their address which is related to their eligibility.  Where mail is returned undeliverable and the person cannot be contacted by other means to update their registration, the registration is made "Dormant" which has various administrative implications under the NZ Electoral Act.  If an elector remains Dormant for 3 years, their registration is cancelled.

New Zealand has voting-at-large (any voter can vote anywhere, including overseas), rather than precinct voting, which somewhat simplifies voter registration.  We have a General Roll on which any eligible elector can register and a Māori Roll on which the indigenous people of New Zealand may choose to register instead.  This somewhat complicates voter registration (and just about everything else about electoral administration in New Zealand).  Every eligible elector is required by law to register to vote on one roll or the other, but is not required to actually vote.  Even the registration requirement is not enforced.  Those who are not registered are encouraged, rather than threatened, to register.

New Zealand does not have a citizen ID card, or national ID number, but we do enjoy the least corrupt government and society in the world (or thereabouts, depending on which year's survey you look at).  The way the roll is operated here may be unfit for less trusting, trusted and trustworthy environments.

I should also note that New Zealand does not operate any biometric systems, unless you count the signature on the form.

Au Sénégal, notre système électoral garantit l’inscription sur les listes électorales à tout citoyen qui le désire. Le code électoral établit la permanence des listes électorales  ; Ainsi chaque année il y’a une période de révision ordinaire des listes électorales qui dure 6 mois du 1er février au 31 juillet. Cet enrôlement des électeurs est effectué par des commissions administratives crées par arrêté des autorités administratives (préfets et sous préfets) et composées d’un président, du maire ou de son représentant, des représentants des partis politiques légalement constitués. Ces commissions fonctionnent sous la supervision de la commission électorale nationale autonome (CENA)qui y nomme un contrôleur. Peuvent s’inscrire sur les listes électorales tous les citoyens qui remplissent les conditions d’âge et de résidence au moment de la période d’enrolement. Au moment de son inscription, le citoyen présente sa carte d’identité biometrique pour justifier son identité. Il lui est délivré un récépissé visé par le contrôleur de la CENA ; récépissé qu’il est tenu de présenter en cas d’omission de son inscription durant la période contentieuse qui s’ouvre à la publication provisoire des listes ou au moment du retrait de sa carte d’electeur. En année d’elections générale, une période de révision exceptionnelle est ouverte pour inscrire sur les listes électorales les personnes qui atteindront la majorité électorale (18 ans) au jour du scrutin. Durant la période de révision des listes, des électeurs déjà inscrits dans le fichier électoral peuvent procéder à des modifications d’adresse électorale ou à des changements de statuts. Un électeur omis sur la liste après son inscription ou radié injustement a la possibilité d’exercer un recours auprès du Président du tribunal d’instance afin de se faire rétablir dans ses droits.

Ababacar Fall 

Export électoral 

Dakar/Sénégal  

In Nigeria, it is only the EMB called Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that has the sole statutory authority to register voters. However, the law also empowers it to engage ad-hoc staff to do voter registration under strict supervision by regular staff of the EMB