Enabling the media to play its vital public information role in elections is not an area where expense should be spared. But neither, fortunately, is it a particularly expensive matter for the election administration. The role of the electoral supervisory body - or any other authority with responsibility for regulating the media - is primarily to create an environment in which the media can operate freely.
Certain detailed aspects of this may be technically quite complex - such as working out formulas for allocating free broadcasting time to parties. But it is the sort of complexity that can be resolved by a small committee. In other words, its cost implications within the overall context of the elections are insignificant.
The most costly aspect of this process is likely to be monitoring media output during the election campaign and the voting process. The scale of this operation will depend, inevitably, on how many media are to be monitored - but also how likely it is that they will breach election regulations. The Media Experts Commission in the Bosnian elections of 1998 had a large complement of staff spread throughout the country, including a specialized media monitoring unit. Most supervisory bodies have nothing remotely approaching that. Media monitoring itself can often be entrusted to non-governmental groups, who have become increasingly active in this area. It will remain to the supervisory body to analyse the findings, reach its conclusions and oversee a complaints procedure.
A potential source of controversy, however, is the question of who foots the bill for any free direct access time allocated to political parties. (See Allocation of Time to Candidates and Parties.) If such a system operates, then direct access slots are only 'free' to the extent that political parties themselves do not pay. However, the question of whether the time is in fact funded by the media themselves, the electoral authorities or some other public body is a matter of potential conflict on which a decision needs to be made in principle well in advance of the election.
A well-managed system of media regulation may actually offer considerable savings elsewhere in an electoral authority's budget. If the media are able to operate freely and have a cooperative and trusting relationship with the bodies organizing the election, they will play an invaluable role in relaying vital information to the electorate at no cost to the electoral administration.
