The election law should give clear guidance on the type of powers envisaged for election
officials in any particular democracy, keeping in mind that it is possible to allocate different
responsibilities to the different levels of an election management body (EMB). Indeed, it is
difficult to envisage one EMB having the ability to carry out all functions, especially in large
countries. The delegation of certain, but not all, functions is usually a good approach to election
administration.
For such delegation to be effective, the areas of responsibility must be clear. In the Kenyan
presidential and parliamentary elections held on December 29, 1997, there were instances of
parliamentary ballot papers not reaching certain villages, thus disfranchising electors from
exercising their democratic rights. This particular example demonstrates that it needs to be
easily identifiable in law who has the responsibility for the distribution of ballots. Is it a
function of the central EMB or is there distributed authority? This question will be one of the
first questions to be asked by international and domestic observers, if not by the citizens
themselves. The law should make the answer easy to find, setting out in detail the role and
responsibilities at the national, regional and local level. In many cases, though, laws have been
written merely saying that the EMB has responsibility for all aspects of the electoral process,
leaving that body to determine the level of delegation to the lower level management bodies.
There is no one model suitable for all democracies. New or developing democracies may go for
central control, at least in the early years, and eventually move to distributed control after two or
three elections. More established democracies may well go down the distributed authority route.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. The size of the country will also
be a major factor in the decision; elections in larger countries tend to require a higher degree
of decentralization than those in smaller countries.
Controlled distributed authority, with the EMB being responsible for establishing that everything
is carried out in accordance with the law, is recommended. Should it not be adopted, then the
EMB should have the power to step in and carry out the outstanding tasks.
If the decision is to divide responsibilities among different levels, such a division could include
the following:
National Level
- registration of political parties and/or coalitions
- handling of all nomination issues for parliamentary and presidential elections
- hearing and determining complaints about appointment of individuals to serve on regional
EMBs
- organizing training of regional election bodies
- monitoring campaign finance
- purchasing equipment and supplies
- distributing equipment and supplies to regional level
- developing uniform training and information materials
- handling national media relations
- allocation of broadcasting time
- monitoring of broadcasting issues
- receiving results from regions and declaring final national results
- determining election disputes, complaints and appeals at the national level
- hearing appeals and determining disputes on all matters referred from the regional
level
- determining all allegations of fraud, corruption and other election offences referred from
the regional level or reported directly
- overseeing production of the voters lists
- organizing the secure production, storage and distribution of ballot papers
- accreditation of national and international observers
Regional Level
- acting as a depository for nominations for onward transmission to the national election
body
- hearing and determining complaints and appeals about appointments to local election
bodies
- organizing training of local election bodies
- determining disputes, appeals and complaints appropriate to the region
- determining voter list appeals from the local level
- delineation of boundaries and determining objections
- receiving election results from the local election bodies and compiling final tally for region
for onwards transmission to the national body
- referring allegations of fraud, corruption and other election offences to the national
level
- distributing equipment and supplies to local level
Local Level
- receiving electors lists from authority responsible for compilation
- conducting the poll on election day
- organizing the counting of the votes and the transfer to the regional body of the details of
the final result
- recruiting poll workers at local level
- recovery of equipment and unused supplies
