According to the president of the Electoral Commission in India, the general elections held there on 5 June 1996 entailed an operation in which 590 million voters were called to 825,000 voting stations over seven days, with the possibility of choosing, on average, among 26 different candidacies, although there was one constituency with 460 candidates. To guarantee the honesty of the elections, more than five million polling station officials were engaged and over two million policemen were mobilised. All the voting stations were set up, the final results were available in four days and the nullification percentage from the voting stations was 0.24%, which is more than acceptable. All this was accomplished at an estimated cost of US$200 million.
Although the organisation of elections certainly does not often reach such proportions, it is nevertheless always a complex and delicate operation in which the electoral administration has to be capable of handling the means necessary for all the citizens to have the genuine opportunity to vote on a pre-set date, through procedures that are understandable and in conditions in which the right to vote is guaranteed. This entails the following steps:
Establishment of an Electoral Map
The venues where the voters should go to cast their vote have to be determined within each constituency. The criteria that can be used for this are:
The distribution must be pre-determined and public, so that all citizens who take part in the electoral process know beforehand where they should go. In this regard it is advisable to restrict variations from one election to another to the absolute minimum.
The division should basically be in accordance with geographical criteria, so that the venue where the voter has to vote is as close as possible to his or her home. Obviously, a distribution of voters according to other criteria (such as by surnames) would be foolhardy since it would require extensive travel by the citizens in search of the place to vote.
There should be a minimum size, determined by the need to maintain voting secrecy, and a maximum size, imposed by the need to execute relatively complex operations in a short time. In this regard, it is difficult to establish general rules, considering the great variety of geographical situations, how developed the country's communications are, etc., in which the different electoral processes take place. But it can be considered advisable to set the minimum accommodations at 300 voters and the maximum at 1,500. It may be necessary to utilise mobile voting stations to collect citizens' votes and then transport them to a suitable place for counting, with the due guarantees of control.
Voting stations should be located in places that are not only accessible, but that favour free expression of the vote and are ideologically neutral. In this respect, for example, the establishment of voting stations in police stations, military installations, headquarters of political parties, religious denominations and even in government buildings at times of political transition should be avoided. On the other hand, using schools as voting centres is most appropriate and common.
Finally, it must be established which people have authorised access to the polling stations, in order to prevent the presence of anyone who has no electoral function and might be a hindrance to the voting operation. Normally, electoral procedures allow the president or supervisor of the voting station the power to authorise which individuals may be present during the electoral operations, with the authority to call upon the aid of police present on the premises if necessary.
Who Mans the Voting Station
Voting stations are the central instrument for a successful election. There the citizens' voting is monitored, initial results are scrutinised and documents are prepared for the authorities charged with the official counting of the ballots. Consequently, voting stations handle the key operations of the entire electoral process. Voting station staff determines who may vote, which votes are valid, and often what the results are, etc.. They often carry out these tasks without the possibility of subsequent appeal.
An adequate composition of the voting station staff is therefore fundamental. In particular, an effort should be made for its officials to be independent persons, not only from governmental powers but the political parties themselves. In this regard, it is preferable that they be citizens nominated through whose results are of a compulsory nature. If handled correctly, their absolute independence with respect to any power or candidacy is guaranteed. The possibility of fraud is ruled out to a significant extent. The only drawback with this system may be the lack of legal knowledge on the part of those nominated who are not necessarily professional. To overcome this, several different measures can be taken:
In the first place, it is common for electoral regulations to impose specific training in order to be an official of a voting station and, in particular, to be the president or supervisor, so lots are drawn only among those who meet such requirements.
To a greater or lesser extent, all regulations offer certain specific training to voting station officials, either through courses or by providing them with detailed instructions, in the form of a manual, on how they have to perform their duties and solve the different problems that may arise on election day.
In some North European countries the system is slightly modified, inasmuch as even though the voting station officials are designated through the drawing of lots, the president, or supervisor, is a regular municipal official, the same one for all the electoral processes. This is probably the best possible system, insofar as the advantages of non-partisan citizenship and professionalism are made compatible. However, this is a model characteristic of extremely consolidated democracies and very difficult to emulate.
This composition is perfectly compatible with the fact that, in the majority of the systems in which it is used, the possibility of appointing representatives as voting station officials (monitors, auditors, representatives) is granted to the political parties and as a rule to all the political forces that have candidacies.
The representatives may intervene in all their operations, with a say but normally without decisive powers. As a whole, through the accumulation and annulment of partisan standpoints, they make a decisive contribution to
guaranteeing the honesty of the elections, constituting a suitable complement to the appointment of polling station officials through the drawing of lots.
This presence the candidacies have in the operations of the polling stations must not be confused with national or international observation of the elections (see Observation) insofar as each of them follows a profoundly different reasoning.
Voting Operations
The procedures that regulate the voting and counting operations at the voting stations are extremely painstaking and standard in all regulations.
They are designed to anticipate all situations and, as far as possible, give clear and exact guidelines to the thousands of legal personnel that apply them.
However, this has to be compatible with the ordinary citizen being able to fully understand them, because it has been empirically proven that complex
regulations for voting or the inadequate design of electoral material inevitably generate a high rate of abstentions and blank votes.
In this regard, the Peruvian experience in 1995 is exemplary. As a consequence of a highly confusing system of preferential votes and ballots of inadequate design, the National Assembly Elections lead to an abstention of 10 points higher and a percentage of blank votes 30 points higher than the presidential elections held on the same day.
Schematically, the most important procedures are:
Determining that the voter can assert his right to vote, because he has been identified, appears on the voters list of that voting station and has not already voted. In principle, the voting station officials decide which voters may or may not vote. However, in many systems (among others, Australia and Guyana), persons with identification difficulties are permitted to vote through what is known as the 'Tendered Ballot', 'Challenged
Ballot' or 'Declaration Vote'. These are voting papers that, in spite of posing problems, are provisionally accepted and are counted separately, the decision on whether or not they are valid being left for a later stage. They have the dual advantage of permitting the voting process to go on and referring the decision to a more qualified authority, preventing the unjustified deprivation of the right to vote, but with the necessary mechanisms for them to be counted only if everything is in fact in order.
The physical act of voting. The vote is personal and secret, which is why many regulations specifically establish that it has to be cast personally. However, it is also relatively common for electoral regulations to envisage the possibility that certain categories of voters may be assisted in this operation by someone they trust (for example, physically handicapped or illiterate people).
In all electoral regulations it is established that there must be a booth to guarantee secret voting. Generally this is compulsory.
After voting, the voting station officials employ the necessary measures to prevent the person from voting more than once. In countries that possess the most elaborate voters lists, this usually consists exclusively of scratching the name out on a numbered voters list which is in the possession of the voting station officials.
However, in many countries this is not sufficient guarantee of not being able to vote again at another voting station, so any voter that has already asserted his right to vote is marked with indelible ink.
Many regulations envisage the possibility of voters not being able to cast their vote personally on the day of the elections, for various reasons. Apart from the rare examples where it is possible for persons to vote in a different place from their permanent residence, such as in Australia, voting
mechanisms are normally established, like voting by mail or by proxy. That is to say, a person who cannot vote grants specific power of attorney to someone else they trust.
The two systems pose a similar problem which is very difficult to
solve: guaranteeing the freedom of the vote and preventing fraud in the utilisation of these mechanisms, without, at the same time, enshrouding it with such tight precautions, that they are purely and simply rendered unusable.
In any case, these mechanisms are not recommended for countries in political transition or for developing countries, as in neither does the mail operate adequately nor are they in a position to guarantee the freedom of the vote according to these procedures. In short, in such cases we consider that these mechanisms should not be introduced, insofar as the benefits that they may hold are indisputably less than the possibilities of fraud they may allow. In these cases and for certain types of citizens that are, for example, in hospital, the mobile voting stations we have already mentioned are more advisable.
Scrutiny. In the vast majority of electoral procedures, the voting station officials themselves exercise scrutiny. It starts immediately after the voting has ended. It has to be one single action that cannot be interrupted. The voting station officials declare which ballots are spoiled, which votes are blank and which are valid and do the count of those belonging to each candidacy, so that the total will tally with the number of votes cast.
This is a public operation, executed in the presence of the auditors or representatives from the political parties and national or international observers, should there be any. The results are shown in a voting record book, which will be used for the general count and designation of seats.
In many regulations this operation is ruled by the principle acta mata veto or the preclusion of any claims and complaints, that is to say, that
whatever had not been reported at each of the stages of the process (scrutiny at the polling stations, general scrutiny, etc.) cannot subsequently be impugned.
The voting record book reflects existing problems, so the ballots admitted as valid are destroyed without any possibility of them coming up for discussion again. Claims are therefore only possible if the problem has been entered on the official voting record book.
Operations following the scrutiny. Once the scrutiny is completed, the polling station officials have to enter all incidents that occurred during voting, the votes cast and the results obtained by each candidacy in official records. They should likewise show the existing discrepancies regarding the count. These records are the basis of both the quick count (official or otherwise) done immediately after the elections and of the official count entrusted to the electoral authority. They are signed by the polling station officials and, in some systems, by the representatives of the candidacies involved.
The duties of the voting station officials are not concluded until they have handed in their records at the places officially destined for this purpose, normally at the offices of the electoral authority or the judiciary.
