The notion of 'pre-campaign issues' of course presupposes that there is a specified campaign period. Some countries, such as the United States, effectively impose no limits on the time of campaigning. (See A Specified Campaign Period?.) Of course, in many systems there may be little gap between different sets of elections: presidential, legislative, local or provincial - even, in the case of the European Union, international.
But under any electoral system there are issues that relate to elections and the media that occur, essentially, outside election periods. These are primarily:
- Voter education
- Discussion of the electoral system
In media coverage the two are clearly related. Informed debate about the workings of the electoral system can take place only in the context of thorough public education on how the system works.
The content of voter education is not the focus of this subject area (see Voter Education). However, pre-campaign voter education is likely to focus on a number of issues, depending on the electoral system and the political context:
- Who is eligible to vote
- Why it is important to be on the voters' roll
- How to register to vote
- Where to register to vote
- How constituencies are divided up
For further discussion of how a voter education programme can utilize the media, see Voter Information.
Another important question is what systems exist for ensuring fair coverage and access by political parties outside election campaign periods. Many countries have systems that allow political parties regular opportunities to put their views to the electorate in direct access programmes. Many of the same considerations apply in devising such systems as are used in allocating direct access slots during elections (see Allocation of Time to Candidates and Parties). These will, of course, be issues for legislators and broadcasting regulators more than for election administrators. But they do have an important bearing on the question of how level is the playing field when an election comes round.
Yet another fundamental issue - although again one for legislators and broadcasting regulators - is how far publicly-funded media are independent of the government of the day and the ruling party. The opportunity for direct access during an election campaign is helpful up to a point, but if the general tenor of broadcasting outside campaign periods is strongly biased then it is difficult to regard the playing field as level.
