Question:

This question was posed by an ACE user through the "Ask a question" function in Electoral Advice.

I have observed a number of elections and have noticed that Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) is becoming more prevalent and can enhance the credibility of results but may also be quite controversial so I have few questions:

• What is a typical formula used in software for PVT in terms of random sampling? What data is a sample based on – demographics, number of registered voters, no. of polling stations? How can a representative sample be taken geographically and politically?

• An efficiently run PVT in addition to exposing fraud could also expose the inefficiency and incompetence of the regular EMB tabulation and increase the number of electoral disputes after the election. Do you think the announcement of a PVT influence the subsequent dispute resolution process in any way – positively or negatively?
• While PVT is a common method to observer groups to check the integrity of the results, do you think the media and the electorate are generally well-informed about this method? If not, could this lead to the misunderstanding that these are official results being announced?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of PVT, exit polls, opinion polls and preliminary results all coming out at the same time? How does this help the voters’ trust in the elections?

Reply:

Posted on 10 May, 2007

Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) is an election observation methodology used for independent verification of election results. It involves observation of the voting and counting of ballots at the polling stations, collection of official polling station results and independent tabulation of these results, parallel to the election authorities. It is often used interchangeably with the term Quick Count. This was first used by the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) in the 1986 elections in the Philippines.

In addition to the Philippines, PVT has been carried out in elections all over the world. Examples include but are not limited to: Albania, Bangladesh, Belarus, Burundi, Indonesia, Georgia, Kenya, Macedonia, Slovakia, Mozambique, Peru and Ukraine.

Other methods of verifying the official count are:

Comprehensive parallel vote tabulation or comprehensive quick count in which all the polling stations in an election is observed, and;

Exit polls, where voters are asked how they voted as they exit the polling station. There is an extensive use of exit polls all over the world, but it has been suggested that PVT is more reliable than exit polls in post conflict and transitional elections because it gives a more reliable result when voters are unwilling to reveal how they voted due to fear of repercussions.

For more information about the different methods, please see Electoral Insight March 2006: Improving Vote Count Verification in Transitional Elections by Eric Bjornlund.

It is important that the PVT uses a statistical sample of the polling stations to ensure that the results are valid and reliable. This can be difficult, especially if some areas in the country are hard to access geographically or due to violence. First of all, to ensure a statistical sample, the population needs to be established. In the case of PVT, the relevant population is all eligible voters, thus excluding all people who, for whatever legal reason, are not eligible to vote. Secondly, it is important to choose a large enough sample to make the results statistically representative and ensure that the sample is selected randomly. To ensure this, it is not necessary to have massive amounts of detailed information about the voting population, but it is important to know whether the population is heterogeneous or not in terms of support for the different candidates or parties. This means that a country with an ethnically diverse population – where ethnicity is likely to correlate with voting behaviour – and many candidates/parties in the race (which is often the case in countries with proportional electoral systems as opposed to plurality/majority electoral systems), requires a larger sample. If this information is not available to the group carrying out the PVT, it is always safer to assume heterogeneity and err on the side of larger samples. A detailed description of how large enough and random enough samples can be selected to ensure statistical reliability is available in Chapter 5 in The Quick Count and Election Observation, An NDI Guide for Civic Organizations and Political Parties. One key message in this chapter worth highlighting here is that groups should endeavour to get support of statisticians who are experienced in conducting PVT to undertake the complex tasks of constructing a sample and analysing the results. This is necessary to ensure that the results are robust and that this message can be conveyed successfully to the key stakeholders in the electoral process.

It is also vital that efforts are made to ensure credibility for the process, understanding of the reasons behind it and trust in the results. One of the key stakeholders in this process is of course the EMB, as they are the ones who are able to provide the information necessary to carry out a successful PVT, such as a list of all polling stations and information about how the official count is carried out. It is therefore very useful if a good working relationship can be established early on in the process through open channels of communication. As a prerequisite, of the key things that the organisation carrying out the PVT needs to respect is the fact that the EMB is the only source of official results after the election, and that any other reports of results should not be treated as official.

Other important stakeholders include candidates and political parties, civil society and NGOs, national and international media and domestic and international observer teams and it is important to ensure a dialogue and a free flow of information with these early on in the process. The usual strategy is for quick count organizers to carefully assign representatives to set up formal meetings with these groups, but they can also offer trainings, disseminate reports in the pre-election period, write articles, hold press conferences and carry out simulations of the PVT.

Though PVT is one way of raising the credibility of an election, as the question suggests, concerns have been raised about how PVT and the announcement of the PVT results impact on the voters’ trust in the electoral process. There is no one answer to how these concerns should be addressed, but one step that needs to be taken to start addressing them is for the organisations and experts involved in this to consider all the issues involved in designing, implementing, interpreting and assessing the PVT and its results, and to analyse which methods are the most appropriate in a given context, to increase cooperation between the different actors involved and to seriously and timely address legitimacy concerns raised in the country in question. For more information about this, please see Electoral Insight March 2006: Improving Vote Count Verification in Transitional Elections by Eric Bjornlund.

And finally: Democracy International is in 2007 conducting a comprehensive review and assessment for USAID of vote count verification techniques, including statistically based and comprehensive PVT, exit polls, and public opinion surveys. The project reviews the experiences with vote count verification in recent transitional or post conflict elections in about 15 countries and will make recommendations on the advantages and disadvantages of various verification techniques, depending on the project's specific objectives and the nature of the relevant political environment.

“To protect the integrity of the process and the interests of their party and candidates, monitors must perform the following tasks: (...)

Undertake a parallel vote count using the copies of the tally sheets collected from each polling site monitored. The parallel count may be compared to the official results and monitors should report any discrepancy immediately through the official complaints mechanism. Copies of the disputed tally sheets should be attached to the complaint. Domestic and international observers, as well as the media, may be given a copy of the complaint.”

• Vladimir Pran