The Question

This question was posted by Andy M.A. Campbell, member of the Practitioners' Network.

There has been a degree of discussion surrounding the broad notion of Open Government in relation to Elections; the specific subset of Open Data was recently discussed at Tech@State in Washington DC and has been the subject of research driven analysis.

My question is multi-faceted. Is there ever a reason why an EMB would NOT release its raw election data to either observer groups both domestic and international and other interested entities such as political parties and Civil society organisations, or not release it in a user friendly-format? Obviously I am thinking after the official certification of results in this regard.

Summary of responses
The general consensus is that in the name of transparency, officially certified raw election data should be released. The exception to this is if the secrecy of the ballot for some voters were to be compromised as a result. This could be the case, for example, on a voting station level if voters cast votes overwhelmingly or even exclusively for one candidate. The release of such voting station level data would therefore in effect reveal the voters’ choice. Several replies note that secrecy of the ballot trumps transparency in the likelihood that the former is compromised. The challenge is assessing where the balance lies between these two key principles.

India is cited as an example where raw data from the several voting stations is purposefully merged in order to protect the secrecy of the ballot. This was also the case for the independence referendum in East Timor, although here the balance is said to have been tipped too far towards secrecy of the ballot, to the detriment of transparency.

One practitioner is of the view that, “if the country has a history of political violence and repression, it would be wise to not give out the raw data at the polling station level.”

Examples of related ACE Articles and Resources
Encyclopaedia:
• Publishing Results 

Names of contributors
1. Sean H Gralton
2. Kevin Evans
3. Alimeti Kitutu Nonhon
4. Victor Hugo Ajila
5. Atem Oben Henry Ekpeni
6. Mark Borg
7. Paul Graham
8. Kisimba Albert
9. Christine Ndayishimiye
10. Richard Kidd
11. Julius Bucumi

While providing transparency in the electoral process is obviously an important value, other values are important as well. 

For example, releasing information about all the votes counted in one box or precinct could compromise the secrecy of the ballot if, for example, all those who put ballots into that box or in that precinct is public information (which it typically is) and if all the ballots were for one party or candidate.  This is not as improbable as you might think-- just consider that many precincts in the United States recorded votes of 100% for one candidate in the most recent presidential election.  As a result, all the voters who cast ballots in those precincts (assuming that they cast valid ballots in the presidential election) effectively had their right to a secret ballot taken away retroactively. 

For some voters, this might have serious negative consequences; some employers have even threatened to fire people who voted the "wrong" way.  And in societies with endemic violence, the consequences could be far worse.

In such instances an EMB might reasonably decide that voting information at the box or precinct level is too sensitive for public release.  I am sure that there are other times when a full release of information might compromise another important voting right, requiring an EMB (or a court, perhaps) to make a careful determination of which value should win in the end.

The comments above is interesting. There is certainly a balance to be struck among core and seeming conflicting principles for upholding integrity in an election, that is balancing the secrecy of the voters' choice and transparency in the process and results. In general the approach should be all aspects of the electoral process should be transparent with the exception of the the ballot of the individual voter.

In India to reduce the potential for voters to be bullied post-balloting by thugs (should the vote for the thug's candidate be too low), the results for 20 ballots boxes (electronic boxes) are blended ad-hoc across an electorate thus making it all but impossible to identify voting patterns in a single location within the electorate. This approach does compromise transparency but does make it much more difficult to identify the individual voter. 

As a result the level of breach of transparency has been insufficient to compromise the perception of free and fair in election results.

There may be, however, levels of intransparency that make it hard to retain trust in the results. The examlpe of the "ballot" in East Timor that determined independence was arguably one such example. In order to protect voters in one part fo teh electorate tat may have voted one way from voters in other regions who may have voted differently, all ballots from across the territory were placed at random across the floor of the local museum and counted. This made it impossible to know who voted for what and where. A single total was relesed once tese votes were counted. Given the history of voting previously in the region in which votes were counted openly in front of any citizens who were standing around ballot stations, the sudden absense of transparency about the count added to already high tensions about the whole exercise. The post electoral violence, while in my view inevitable and most ominously totally predictable, nonetheless were also given added impetus by the absense of transparency about the vote (certainly to the voting public). So here arguably intransparency went too far and was counterproductive.

La gestion de resultat avant la publication par le pouvoir organisateur depend  de la legislation en matière électorale d'un pays à l'autre, en République Démocratique du Congo par exemple,la loi ne prevoit pas la certification des resultats par un organisme international avant la publication par l'OGE.

 Au terme de l'article 71 de la loi éléctorale en vigueur dans mon pays la RD Congo, la CENI recoit les resultats consolidés de tous les centres de compilation par le secretariat executif provincial. elle dresse un procès verbal des resultats provisoires signé par tous les membres du bureau. le president de la CENI ou son remplaçant rend public les resultats provisoires du vote; les resultats publiés sont affichés dans les locaux de la CENI ou consultés selon le cas sur internet. les procès verbaux aindi que les pièces jointes sont trasmis à la Cour constitutionnelle, à la Cour  administrative d'appel? au tribunal administratif du ressort selon le cas.

Tel est la modalité legale de gestion de resultat dans mon pays qui passe de l'OGE à la juridiction competente selon le type d'election.

Desde la experiencia de Ecuador y de Latinoamérica, puedo afirmar que se ha generalizado en las Constituciones y en las leyes electorales el secreto del voto. Inclusive, en los instrumentos internacionales de derechos humanos se ha reconocido este principio. Entonces, considero que no se puede confundir el principio del "voto secreto" con el de "transparencia".

El voto secreto es un derecho fundamental de las personas porque responde a un ejercicio de otros derechos como la libertad. Las personas, por su dignidad,  pueden elegir y ser elegidos. Además, nadie puede ser discriminado por sus creencias políticas, ideológicas, etc. El voto secreto es un ejercicio de la democracia y de la libertad. Sin libertad no existe democracia.

En cambio, la transparencia de los procesos electorales implica que todas las etapas del proceso electoral son públicas y que la información está disponible para las organizaciones políticas, sociales, veedurías, observación nacional e internacional.

Por tanto, para resolver esta cuestión se debería determinar previamente que información es pública y qué información es privada.

Saludos

Thankyou for you comments. Just to press the point i am not talking about release of information that is not certified by the EMB. I am talking about officially certified results down to PS level, which sean rightly points out "an EMB might reasonably decide that voting information at the box or precinct level is too sensitive for public release" and to further press the point Open Data is not at all like Ushahdid - they are vastly different.

It largely depends on the electoral dynamics and perception by stakeholders in every country. In Cameroon the law provides that results in every polling station be made public to the voters who voted in the station immediately after counting to reduce electoral tension which has led to a reduction of post E-day conflicts.

Relating to Sean's comments, in Ghana for-instance, voting and counting are conducted not inside a public structure but outside the building, in the open where every voter sees what happens. It was reported that in some cases where queue control was poor, the secrecy of the ballot was compromised. However, the Commission insists that the openness in the voting procedure has greatly improved the transparency of the process and measures will be taking to cope with the secrecy of the ballot. The EMB has to make a decision on which as is important and widely spread and accepted.

Releasing polling results at precinct level has much to play in the entire election process especially where voting is done manually and counting carried out immediately after voting stops. Experience has shown that result manipulations are perpetuated during the transmission process and so announcing the results at precinct level and distributing the result sheets to the representatives of contesting parties present helps to avoid controversies and assist contestants to prefer defends in court in support of their claims.

I think the principle should be to start off by being totally transparent. If then problems arise, and as they arise, one would start reconsidering this policy. However this would depend on the history of the country. If the country has a history of political violence and repression, it would be wise to not give out the raw data at the polling station level and move out a bit and provide this at the division level or whatever the next administrative level might be called in any particular country. A more important electoral principle than transparency is the secrecy of the vote. If the raw data we provide exposes how a section or community of the population has voted then it would be wise to reconsider releasing such data.

The SA EMB has taken to releasing data systematically - including a variety of map based products - in order to engender both transparency and to encourage better understanding of voter behaviour and to allow smaller parties with more limited resources the sort of data access that larger better resourced parties take for granted. They do limit the level of fine detail to try and avoid the problems discussed above. We have found that data held by EMBs has significance beyond elections - and as that data is collected using state funds we believe it should be made freely available to citizens. Some years ago we were able to use their voter registration data (not individual records) to map mortality ages and rates at voting places in order to draw inferences about the impact of disease on party support, as one example. We also know that mapping systems which EMBs use to determine voting stations have uses in other developmental processes. So especially in countries which have limited resources and are trying to reduce duplicated costs, EMBs need to be drawn into discussions of data availability and openness.

Je me souviens de lors de mes derniers posting sur le forum, j’ai évoquais le fait que les élections au monde ne devraient pas avoir le même baromètre, qu’il fallait distinguer les élections de « retour de pais », de la consolidation de la démocratie, ainsi que celle de la démocratie.

En les prenant dans cette angle les réponses aux questions seront toujours mitigées, encore que les systèmes électoraux, les lois électorales et le comportement humain des acteurs aux processus différent des pays.

Juste une contribution pour que chacun apporte selon ses compétences, réalités, connaissances et expériences au regard des régions du monde.

Bien de bonnes choses à tous.

La discussion est très intéressante. Il est question de ménager deux concepts aussi importants à savoir le secret du vote et la transparence du processus électoral. Je pense que dans tous les cas l'organisme chargé d’organiser les élections doit s'en tenir à la la loi en vigueur. Dans mon pays le Burundi, la proclamation des résultats se fait suivant une forme désagrégée, c'est à dire qu'on peut savoir que telle ou telle circonscription est un fief de tel ou de tel parti. Mais cela ne viole pas le secret du vote dans la mesure où on ne peut pas savoir sur le plan strictement individuel comment un citoyen a voté. Cette méthode permet à chaque formation politique d'affiner ses méthodes de travail. Si par exemple les résultats montrent que dans telle circonscription les résultats ne sont pas satisfaisants pour un parti donné, c'est à lui de consacrer plus d'efforts sur cette dernière pour les prochaines échéances.

Voter secrecy, confidentiality and anonymity are fundamental considerations in a secret ballot. Accordingly any operational processes applied should be reflective of and supportive of these considerations.

The election is a sensitive issue for every body. The winners win for a given term and give orientantion to  the destiny of the country. In poor countries, you loose election, you have the trouble to survive , where the state is considered as the source of revenue, the cow to be milked by every citizen. 

1. The reason which makes the results   given by the EMB to be certified is to build trust between all stakeholders and give credibility to the process.  People may have fear or trust the EMB and the outcome of election. But after certification by an external eye, which is legally and officially kwown to be impartial and independent, all people get trust in the results. 

2. The election is not the matter for EMB only. Elections are more credible is there are many channels  and levels of control from the voter registration until the the announcement of results.

3. The human being or population can not run a risk by leting their destiny in the hands of a cup of few persons like the EMB. They have to control what the EMB is doing, if it is doing its mission correctly to limite the bad thing which may occur. The EMB and other stakeholders must understand that more the relations between and stakeholders is closer or high, less the conflicts occur, more the elctions and their outcome are credible.

Julius Bucumi, Inspector of Justice, Burundi