Having the right staff working in election management and administration is important. The
wrong person can create integrity problems, either intentionally or through ignorance and
mistakes. The right person in the right position will make the system work better and eliminates
many potential integrity problems. The right person is usually the person with the professional experience,
attitude and training for that particular position. The right person is also an honest employee with
professional and ethical conduct. (For more information see Personnel Appointment and Training.)
To create an election management body with a professional, honest and dedicated staff, the following factors can be taken into consideration:
Develop a rational staffing pattern
One of the first steps for an electoral management body is to determine its internal organizational
structure and its staffing patterns. This can be plotted on an organizational chart which electoral managers can use to clearly delineate the different
responsibilities between divisions and staff.
Most electoral management bodies are divided along
functional lines -- management, administration (including human resources), finance, operations, legal services, technology support and public relations. Charting the staffing and working systems by divisions, along with each staff position, can help facilitate the development of a rational staffing pattern. Providing a clear objective statement for each division, and each staff member in that division, can avoid integrity problems that could arise when personnel are unclear as to their job responsibilities as well as help avoid duplication of efforts.
One way to organize an organizational charts is to do so hierarchically starting with the chief electoral officer and division chiefs, going down to the office chiefs and staff they supervise. These charts can help ensure institutional and electoral integrity, because they show the distribution of responsibilities and the staffing allocated for each task. Distributing it to every employee ensures that everyone knows how they fit into the overall structure, how the chain of command works, what their responsibilities are, what and who they are responsible for and how information will get through the system.
These charts can also help maintain integrity in recruitment as it tells the human resource
managers how many staff members they need to recruit, what the job requirements are and who
they will be working for. As it also ranks personnel according to their responsibilities, it enables a
ranking of every position on a professional salary scale. If this system is followed, it can help ensure that
qualified people are hired for the right job and receive equitable pay for their level of work.
Organizational charts can also be used as a monitoring tool because it lists the supervisor for each staff member and lets the supervisors know who they are responsible for. Supervision of the process and staff, is another important element to safeguard integrity of the elections
Competitive recruitment
Integrity requires that staff be recruited on the basis of merit. Advertising open positions widely ensures potential staff, with appropriate qualifications, are aware of vacancies. Advertisements generally list the type of position, job description, selection
criteria and salary range, with enough time provided for the information to circulate and
for candidates to submit their applications. Closing dates to receive employment applications are supposed to be respected and the best qualified person selected. For more on recruitment
see Internal Personnel Office.
Written personnel policies
Integrity also requires standardized personnel policies to ensure that every employee is treated
equally and knows their rights and responsibilities as employees. This is facilitated if employment policies are written and distributed to all employees.
Most public sector employers, including election administrators, include the norms of professional behaviour and a code of
ethics/conduct in their personnel policies. The penalties for breach of professional conduct, such as
termination of employment for accepting kickbacks or tampering with election materials are usually also included in the code of conduct.
Some electoral systems use volunteers for pollworking. In Mexico, for instance, more than 730,000 private
citizens worked as poll workers in the 1997 elections 114 With this number of volunteers, integrity can be facilitated through the use of written personnel policies that include the selection criteria used to recruit volunteers, job descriptions, expected
conduct and sanctions for breach of trust or bad conduct.
Competitive pay for professional staff
The issue of how much to pay an electoral worker always generates a debate. Payrolls are a
significant part of an election management budget and, when funds are low, the tendency is to
minimize salaries. However, pay for professional electoral workers (workers who live off of their
elections salary) that is too low can create integrity problems. These problems can include:
- employee slow downs or strikes over low pay;
- moonlighting in a second job, which reduces the amount of time spent at the primary elections
job and limits worker productivity;
- increasing temptations for employees to use their election post as a means to supplement their
income, such as asking for user fees, kickbacks or other forms of graft. Transparency
International found that 65% of the respondents in its 1999 Bribe-Payers Survey named low
public sector salaries as the main factor contributing to an increase in corruption. 115
- increasing levels of employee theft of supplies, equipment or other valuable equipment that are
needed for the electoral process;
- increasing likelihood of employees, especially voter registration or poll workers, taking
electoral materials, such as voter registries, tally sheets or ballots, as hostage in exchange for a
pay raise; and
- increasing likelihood of disgruntled employees accepting financial or economic incentives to
tamper with the process or to look the other way.
Unhappy employees have been a major source of integrity problems in several elections. For
example, in Mozambique, poll workers wanting an additional day of pay for an extra day of voting
in the 1994 elections, surrounded the UNOMOZ headquarters trapping the UN personnel inside
until the extra day of pay was negotiated. In Haiti in the May 2000 elections, poll workers in the North refused to be trained until they received better pay, and delayed the delivery of electoral materials to polling sites until the morning of polling. 116
Training
Electoral staff must be adequately trained so they can act as integrity agents, rather than being a source of integrity problems. All levels and types of employees require training. Managers have to be trained in good management
techniques and in proper supervision of employees. Communications staff require training on the equipment being used by the election administration. Warehouse staff require training in the proper warehouse management and inventory control systems. Registrars need training in who is
eligible to register and how the process is done. Poll workers need training in how the polling and
count will be conducted.
In addition to knowing how to do their jobs, election staff needs to be aware of general integrity issues and the control mechanisms that are built into the system to protect integrity. Although the training of poll workers and registrars is usually short and focused on the task at hand, the integrity of the process benefits if they can gain a broader knowledge of such things as how the complaint process works and the importance of making suggestions for improving the process. Integrity also benefits if permanent staff receive systematic and comprehensive training in all aspects of integrity and the electoral process. Good training can substantially reduce the number of errors that are the cause of many integrity problems. It also helps deter deliberate attempts to subvert the system from within as the employees and employers know that there are control mechanisms in place and that the employees know how to use them.
Good training requires good planning and organization as the regulations and procedures will
need to be developed before training can commence. Written registration and polling manuals can help protect election integrity because they can be used during training as a text book and serve as a reference during registration and polling.
Some systems have found that the use of mock voting or registration kits can increase the effectiveness of training as the personnel is able to run through the process before the real thing. They can receive hands on training in such things as how to set up a polling site, how the seals are attached to the ballot box and filling in forms.
Supervision
Effective supervision is another key integrity mechanism and tool of good management. It can help ensure that employees not only do their jobs
effectively, but that this is done in the professional and ethical manner required for free, fair and credible elections. Supervisors can identify problem employees and areas, and ensure that corrective measures are taken. An example of some of the things supervisors usually watch out for, and which justify a dismissal in most systems, are found in this list from the South African Elections Commission:
- misconduct, incompetence or incapacity;
- absence from duty without approval of supervisor;
- bias;
- not following or enforcing the law; and
- any other consideration related to free and fair elections.117
