Technology can be used to assist an election management body (EMB) in the task of registering political parties for electoral purposes. In particular, software can be used in the process of determining whether a party is entitled to registration, and for maintaining the register of political parties.
Party Member Verification
In many jurisdictions, a political party has to meet a minimum membership requirement in order to be officially registered. An EMB can satisfy itself that a party has met the relevant membership requirement by using technology to analyze the party's claims of membership status.
Electronically capturing party membership data is the first step required before technology can be used. In many cases, parties will have already converted their membership lists into electronic form, in which case they would be able to provide their lists to an EMB electronically, usually on disk or by email.
Where parties do not have electronic copies of their lists, they will usually supply hardcopy lists. These can be converted into electronic form either by having data-entry operators key the data into a database or spreadsheet, or by scanning the lists using an optical scanner equipped with intelligent character recognition software (see Optical Scanning Systems). Where there is a need to capture signatures or photographs of party members, image scanning can also be used.
Where data is supplied on hardcopy and only a random sample of names needs to be used, it would save time and effort if it was practicable to electronically capture only the details relating to the required random sample.
Once data has been captured electronically, database or spreadsheet software can be used to process party membership lists. The database or spreadsheet can then be used to generate mail merge letters to persons on the membership lists (using a word processor or a database report). These letters can ask them to verify that they are members of the party. Their replies can be entered into the database or spreadsheet to indicate the response rate. Barcodes can be used on the replies to speed the data entry of responses.
Where only a sample of persons on a party membership list are to be contacted in the above manner, database or spreadsheet software can be used to extract random samples to the proportions or quantities desired.
In some situations it may not be practicable or desirable to write to persons listed on party membership lists. Another option is to ask parties to supply party membership lists including signatures or photographs of party members. Where the EMB has access to a digitised record of voter signatures or photographs (such as may be contained in a digitised voter register or national identity database), signature or biodata recognition technology might be used to verify that the identities submitted as party members are genuine.
Party Information Databases
Once a party has been registered, the EMB usually requires its details to be kept on file. Database software is ideal for maintaining this information, although a simple register could be kept on a word processor or spreadsheet system.
Where party register details have to be made publicly available, this can be achieved by providing them in hardcopy and electronic format. Details could be published on the internet to allow easy access for those with internet capability. For a large, complex or regularly changing party register, the internet copy of the register could be linked to the party register database to allow for automatic updating of the internet version.
