Premises and Advertising
Free use of public spaces for electoral events and for the display of advertising material by the different candidacies is a very common practice in the majority of electoral processes. From a democratic point of view, this allotment can meet strictly egalitarian criteria regarding the candidacies or be based on reasonable, objective, pre-set distinctions that determine unequal treatment among them, for example, in view of the votes obtained by the party in the last equivalent elections. These operations are executed or supervised by the electoral organisations to assure equal opportunities during the process.
Public Media
This is a variant on the foregoing paragraph that has acquired extraordinary
importance, as the media are being used more and more for electoral campaigns in modern societies, which has given rise to meticulous regulation in the
majority of the recent electoral procedures. This subject is the target of constant attention and monitoring during electoral processes. The following principles should be applied:
- free media access for all candidacies
- neutrality of information provided by the media, encompassing not only
time and space dedicated to the electoral campaign, but the informational programmes as a whole--electoral organisations must control this in terms of contents and the treatment of the news
- observance of political plurality so that information on a given candidacy, for example, cannot be excluded
- prohibition or strict limitations on the possibility of contracting advertising space which should, in any case, be clearly differentiated from informational publicity
- distribution of media time and space according to pre-established, objective criteria
In some countries, the growing importance of the media has given rise to the
emergence of a new phenomenon. As the opportunities for publicising candidacies are extremely open, there has been a proliferation in candidacies with the sole intent and purpose of having free access to the media for purposes that are not strictly electoral and then withdrawing from the competition once the campaign has ended (e.g., social movements that thus attract public attention).
Thus, fraud is clearly committed, apart from this being a confusing over-saturation of electoral publicity time and space. The result is harmful to the genuine candidacies and, for that matter, to the electorate as a whole. The solution is not simple: the difficulty of separating the electoral wheat from the propagandistic chaff usually causes the electoral bodies to refrain from intervening, even in clear cases of abuse.
Private Media
Electoral regulations usually contain two types of procedures with relation to the private media: in the first place, those directed at the contenders usually establish a limit on the quantities that can be allotted to this type of expense; in the second place, those directed at the media, forbidding discrimination regarding the inclusion or exclusion of electoral advertising by the candidacies, as well as its costs.
Obtaining an Updated Electoral Register or Voters List
Another public advantage or indirect subsidy usually offered to the candidacies is a copy of the electoral register, or voters list, to be used for the elections, with the dual purpose of being able to conduct a personalised campaign as well as carrying out control on the day of voting.
In some developed countries a curious problem related to the protection of information on citizens has emerged. The voters list has acquired high financial value because of the data it contains, to such an extent that some candidacies have been organised according to economic groupings, with no other purpose than to obtain this valuable file of information on the citizens. To overcome this problem, utilisation thereof for any ends other than the elections was penalised, and a decree was even made to identify data supplied to each political group by computer, so that any culprit diverting it for commercial purposes can be traced.
Electoral Mailing
Closely related to being provided with a voters list is the provision for subsidies--normally a very reduced tariff--for mailing out campaign literature and, in states where the ballots may be printed by the parties, of ballot papers. In some cases the printing of the campaign literature is also subsidised, granting an amount of money for each batch actually sent out.
