Overview
Electoral processes are regulated by laws and regulations. These processes lend themselves to the
development of forms. Electoral managers love forms. Every step of the process seems to
require the completion of a form and if possible two or three forms have been prepared even to
record the simplest of administrative tasks.
Consistent with the advice throughout this publication, KEEP IT SIMPLE. The more forms to
fill in the greater the risk of mistakes and the greater the complexity of the training process.
Security and transparency are paramount, but these principles do not preclude the design of
forms that are easy to understand, that are complete and that include several parts of the process
on the same form. Whenever a record needs to be kept or an activity recorded, it is efficient to
provide a prescribed form for this purpose. Each step of the election process needs to be recorded
but it is necessary to stand back and see where forms can be combined or eliminated, or if the
electoral manager has the discretion to determine how many (or how few) forms are needed from
the start.
The electoral laws and regulations often prescribe the design and content of specific forms, of
which ballots are the best example. Where the law gives no discretion, its provisions must be
followed specifically; where there is discretion, the manager should use the opportunity to reduce
work and keep the process simple. In the United Kingdom (UK) a single form is often used for
the appointment of poll workers, for their acceptance of the obligations of the appointment and
to enable them to cast their vote as absentee. The list of forms to be used during the electoral
process is formidable. A roster of election forms prepared for elections in Saskatchewan
(Canada) is provided in Roster of Election Forms - Saskatchewan, Canada; this material gives an indication of the amount of paper
moving that occurs during the process.
Ballots
Nearly all elections rely on the voter indicating one or more choices from a list of candidates or
parties. There are nearly as many systems for accomplishing this task as there are countries in the
world. The particular social and historical traditions of countries have influenced the way in
which ballots are designed. It would not be possible in this publication to show every current
example, but a list of ballot samples has been prepared to indicate the breadth of choice available
to the electoral manager - see the sample materials. Many of these papers were originally printed
in colour, although they are all reproduced here in black and white. The cost of producing these
ballots varies greatly; some can be printed locally on inexpensive paper, others require
considerable technical expertise and are printed on high quality watermarked paper. An
overview of ballots follows.
Party Symbols
Political parties frequently adopt a symbol both to enable voters to recognize the party, if the
symbol is allowed on the ballot paper, and also for publicity purposes. The electoral management
body may have a role in the approval of symbols put forward by parties. In some laws the
electoral manager allocates a symbol to a party or candidate when that party or candidate is
registered. In other cases, the party or candidate submits a symbol which is approved by the
electoral management body, provided there is no duplication or clash with another symbol
already registered. National or religious symbols are not usually allowed. In the United Kingdom
(GB) there is no provision in the electoral law for symbols, but each of the main parties has a
symbol which is used for publicity purposes. The symbols, however, are not featured in the
official part of the electoral process. The United Kingdom (GB) system allows each candidate to
have a description not exceeding six words. This provision is normally used by the candidate to
identify which political party he/she represents, but there have been many problems in the United
Kingdom caused by candidates copying the descriptions commonly used by the main parties and
thus confusing the electors.
Considerations in Ballot Paper Design
The ballot papers which include the name of the candidate, the party affiliation and the
candidate's photograph give the elector the fullest information possible and avoid confusion.
Colour-banding on the reverse of the ballot paper can both ensure the voter's choice remains
secret and also help the voter place the ballot in the correct box.
Some ballot papers are prepared on the basis that the candidates or parties are arranged in
alphabetical order. Other systems provide for the positions on the ballot paper to be determined
by drawing lots - the party drawn first goes at the top of the ballot paper and so on. There is also
considerable variation in the way ballots are marked. The options include:
- putting a cross or mark in the space provided opposite the party or candidate of the voters
choice;
- deleting a 'Yes or 'No' - when a referendum is held;
- writing 'Yes' or 'No' in a
box opposite the question - when a referendum is held;
- numbering the candidates from
1 upward in the order of the voters choice - often required by a proportional representation
system;
- placing the official rubber stamp against the party list selected;
- filling in a small
circle opposite the candidate or party chosen;
- connecting by a firm line the two ends
of an arrow opposite the candidate or party chosen;
- placing a mark against a candidate list number - in this system there is no reference on the
ballot paper to any candidate or party.
There are a number of further variations that can be incorporated on ballot papers, which include:
- the option to vote for the party or choose individual candidates - see Ballot Papers - Australia
-
the ability to make multiple choices on the same ballot paper (president, governor, senator, etc.) -
see Ballot Papers - Brazil
- selecting from a series of slips of paper, each of which contains the details of one
party/candidate, and then placing the selected slip in the ballot box while discarding the rest - see
Ballot Papers - Burkina Faso and Ballot Papers - Cameroon (this system frequently incorporates placing the selected slip in an
envelope before placing it in the box so as to protect the secrecy of the vote)
- providing
the facilities for the voter to 'write in' the candidate or party chosen
- writing onto the
ballot paper the number of the candidate or party selected, when each candidate or party is
allocated a number and these are displayed on lists in the polling booth - see Ballot Papers - Denmark and
Ballot Papers - Estonia
The choice of system before the electoral manager is bewildering. Some considerations are listed
below.
- In the samples shown, the space allocated for the elector to mark the ballot paper varies
greatly. Where a cross or tick system is used and reasonable space is given for this space to be
marked, the system can easily be used by illiterate voters to mark with a thumb or fingerprint.
- Many of the samples have been reduced in size to aid copying. However, the needs of
poorly sighted electors should be taken into account. Some of the papers are much easier to
follow than others.
- The cost of printing the papers varies greatly. Some papers are in colour; include
descriptions, photographs and symbols; are on high quality paper; and are sequentially numbered
and prepared in books with counterfoils. Other papers, printed in black and white, consist
simply of a party or candidate name and a space to mark the voter's choice.
- The
system where voters select from a series of party or candidate slips has the advantage that if a
candidate withdraws at the last minute his/her slip can simply be removed from the pile given to
the voter.
- Some ballot papers are designed to be used in optical scanning or other automated vote
counting processes. In such cases, care needs to be taken to ensure that the design is
user-friendly for the voter, not for the optical scanning system.
Forms
We do not intended to give hundreds of examples of forms. The advice again is to keep design
and layout simple and to combine forms wherever possible. Whilst the electoral manager
designing the forms may be a full time electoral specialist with an intimate knowledge of the law,
the chances are that the people using the form will be far less familiar with the law and process.
There are cases where introducing forms will help in the smooth administration of the process.
One example is in dealing with complaints. In this respect, a form will ensure that all the basic
information is at hand. Complaints Process and Form - OSCE (Bosnia) is a Bosnia/Herzegovina (BA) appeal process note and
form. In an election such as this one, where a considerable number of complaints were
anticipated, it was important to have a clear procedure for dealing with them. The guidelines
ensured that all participants understood the procedure and the advance preparation of this
material enabled complaints to be processed and recorded by a standard method.
Including forms in poll worker manuals is one way of introducing poll workers to all the
paperwork so they are not confronted on polling day with a large number of strange forms to
complete. The Ghana Election Officials Manual, Election Officials Manual - Ghana, is one example. If possible, the
instructions for completing the form and an example should be placed on the form itself. In
Ballot Paper Account - United Kingdom, for example, the instructions for completing the form are clearly indicated on the
form. As you will see, the form is simple, but many poll workers used to complete it wrongly.
Including the example on the form, reduced this problem by 90%. Remember that key staff may
know everything about the process, but the poll workers completing the form at the end of a 15
hour day just want to get home as soon as possible!
Multiple copies are often required of electoral forms. Where a complaint is made, for instance,
the complainant may want to keep an identical copy; when a result statement is completed, four
to six copies may be required. Additional copies are easy to arrange if photocopiers or computers
are immediately available but not so easy in a remote polling site. Using pre-printed, carbon
impregnated forms is one way of providing multiple copies and also ensuring that there are no
errors with the copies. These forms are inexpensive, simple and easy to use.
Paper forms are rapidly being overtaken by storage of information through scanning of forms and
other similar processes.
Procedures
Most electoral processes are governed in the electoral law. Procedures, therefore, need to reflect
the law. If several hundred staff members are responsible for the same procedure - for example
poll workers - then there should be consistency of operation. This consistency is one reason why
poll worker and election official manuals are prepared. The Ghana manual referred to above (see
Election Officials Manual - Ghana) sets out the procedures to be followed by a variety of staff - the returning officer in
Section 1, the residing officer in Section 2, the polling assistants in Section 3 and so on.
Specifying the procedures to be followed in some detail should minimise the risk of problems
during the process and the publication of the manual in advance makes other participants to the
process equally aware of the correct way of implementing the law .
Supplementing the explanation of the procedures with visual material makes understanding (and
the training process) easier. In the Ghana Manual -see Election Officials Manual - Ghana - the diagram explaining the
voting steps (after page 29) is easy to follow and an excellent way of explaining procedures.
Other considerations
Where there are major changes in the legislation, such as that from multiple ballots to a single
ballot in Haiti in 1990 or from negative voting to affirmative voting in Russia, the design of
forms which make it easy for the voter to clearly understand what has to be done is essential.
Ways of making forms and ballots multilingual should be utilised in preference to producing
large numbers of forms in different languages. The latter option wastes a lot of material and also
makes control more difficult because of the numbers involved.
In many cases, it is desirable for the electoral law to prescribe forms - these forms will avoid
different electoral managers reaching different interpretations of what the law means or what is
needed.
