Laws and rules involving political parties, candidates, and electoral systems may have profound administrative consequences. Therefore, administrative realities need to be taken into account when decisions about such regulations are being made. This applies especially, but not exclusively, to decisions about election timetables. Even if there are pressing political reasons in a country to hold early elections, an unrealistic timetable may be a recipe for chaos.
According to one view, considerations of fairness and efficiency require that the dates of elections should be fixed in advance, and should not be at the discretion of the government of the day. However, the practical and theoretical arguments about fixed versus variable election dates are not clear-cut.
Approaches to the Administration of Parties and Candidates
It is useful to contrast the traditional approach, which involved 'light' administration and minimal interference in the electoral process, and a more modern (though not necessarily better) approach that involves 'heavier' administration and far more detailed regulations.
In the nineteenth century, the state intervened relatively little in running elections. Certainly, the police were often needed to control the brawls and the drunkenness that accompanied the poll, especially as long as votes were public (as in Britain until 1872), and when candidates still plied voters with liquor and other 'treats'. The law courts were also involved in frequent litigation between rival candidates.
However, the main tasks of election management were still in the hands of the 'private sector'. Candidates and newly-emerging political party organizations took the main responsibility for registering voters and objecting to the registration of those placed on the list by their political opponents. Candidates (with occasional assistance from their party organizations) were liable for the heavy costs of running election campaigns; state aid for campaign costs was still well into the future. Candidates in some countries, such as Britain, were even expected to share between them the costs of the returning officers who ran the polling booths. The reasoning was that no election would have been necessary - and thus the costs of administering the poll would have been avoided - if candidates had refrained from presenting themselves to the voters. Therefore, the candidate should bear the responsibility for the costs of electoral administration. Finally, candidates who succeeded in winning seats in the legislature were expected to pay their own living costs; parliamentary salaries too were a thing of the future.
By the present time, public authorities in most countries are responsible for the tasks of registering voters, for running and paying for the administration of elections, for subsidizing the campaign costs of candidates and parties, for paying not only for the salaries of legislators but also for the costs of party groups and their staffs within the legislature, and in some places even for setting and enforcing rules about the internal organization and running
of political parties. Scholars and commentators have even referred to the emergence in some countries of a 'party-state' - a system where political parties are so closely regulated and funded by the state that they cease, in effect, to operate as independent, voluntary bodies.
Contrasting Divisions of Responsibilities
Approaches to the administration of parties, candidates and elections depend not only on whether the regulatory system is 'light' or heavy'; they also vary in the way in which responsibilities are divided between central and local authorities, and between different institutions.
- Local versus Central Administration
In countries such as Britain, the central authority responsible for administering elections (a government ministry called the Home Office) is inactive. Virtually all of the responsibility for tasks such as voter registration, and the running of polling stations, rests with district
Governments, a low level tier of local authorities. By contrast, in Australia, there is a highly centralized electoral commission. This commission is not part of a government ministry, but is an indepedndent and powerful institution.
The United States is an example of a system with both centralized and highly decentralized elements. A special Federal Election Commission is an important body when it comes to administering regulations concerning the financing of federal elections. However, many aspects of party and election law are the responsibility of state governments.
- Adversarial versus Bureaucratic Approaches
The 'adversarial' approach refers to a system such as that which existed until the 1990s in Britain, where it is usually left to candidates and to political parties to bring legal actions against opponents whom they suspect of infringing the rules. The 'bureaucratic' approach refers to a system, such as that of Australia or Canada, where there exists a powerful bureaucracy devoted specifically to the administration of election laws and to their enforcement, also see Approaches to Regulating Parties and Candidates.
- Constitutional Provisions and Bills of Rights
It has become virtually standard practice for ordinary legislation in a country about political and electoral matters to be subject to principles - such as 'free speech' - set out in that country's constitution or in a specially-entrenched bill of rights. This may lead to legal challenges against electoral laws and party laws before the relevant constitutional courts. The United States, Canada, Germany, and Britain are examples of countries where there have been (or currently are) such challenges.
Administrative Implications: Specific Measures and Rules
Some rules and measures that may have especially significant administrative implications are:
Different methods of registration have vital administrative implications. In countries where the task of drawing up an accurate register is simply too onerous, it may be practical to adopt a 'second best' strategy of abandoning the effort, and relying instead on indelible ink to ensure that, at the very least, a person can cast only one vote. A problem with indelible ink, even if it
succeeds in avoiding multiple voting, is that it may not ensure that those who are under age cannot vote. Where there are large communities of migrant workers who are citizens of another country, many of them may also be able to cast votes, although not entitled to do so.
The administrative complexity of voter registration may depend also on whether lists drawn up for other purposes are used for electoral purposes. In some countries of continental Europe, all residents must register with the local authorities. Such information (as well as the internal passports required in some former Soviet countries) may be usable with little trouble as a base
for voter registration. In some countries, such a method smacks of the 'police state' and has proved unacceptable to the public.
- Signatures Required for Nomination of Candidates
Regulations that require or allow candidates to secure a place on the ballot by collecting a number of voters' signatures are usually harder to administer than systems that require financial deposits. Moreover, the administrative task of checking that the signatures of those supporting a nomination are valid obviously becomes greater the more signatures that are required. Also see
Signatures and Deposits and Signatures.
- Rules Relating to the Disclosure of Political Donations
Administrative implications of such regulations depend largely on the threshold above which donations must be declared. If the threshold is high (as in Germany), only a few donations must be declared. Where the threshold is low - as in the United States and Canada - the list of donors will be much longer and will involve more administration. The administrative task will grow if the authorities are required to draw up lists in ways that make it easy for members of the public to search through them with ease - if, for example, the names and addresses of donors must be given, and the lists must be made available for computer-assisted searches (as is the practice of the U.S. Federal Election Commission).
- Administrative Implications for Parties and Candidates
It is not only public bureaucracies that must face the administrative consequences of electoral rules and regulations. They may have a direct impact on parties and candidates. A frequent complaint in the United States is that the rules regarding campaign financing have become so complex and the possibility of innocent breaches so real that candidates are forced to spend a significant percentage of their campaign budgets on employing professional lawyers and accountants. This may deter candidates from new or small parties from presenting themselves for election, and may thus inhibit political participation.
See also Accountability.
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