Candidates
Though it is now difficult to imagine the old days of elections, there was a time when voting was not only public, but ballot papers did not yet exist. It was in the British colony of South Australia that what came to be known as the Australian ballot was first introduced in 1856-7. Names of candidates were printed on an official ballot paper, and voters cast their votes in secret. Much later, voting machines replaced the paper ballot in some parts of the world.
With the advent of official ballot papers, it became necessary to determine which names should be included, and how they should be listed. An electoral timetable is a prime requirement of a ballot system. A date, time, and place must be set for the completion of formalities concerning nominations. There must be enough time for the printing of the ballot papers. Responsible administrators for the election must have time to check that nominees are eligible (for instance that they meet any qualifications concerning age, citizenship, and so forth). The administrative authorities must also have time to check that the signatures of those supporting the nomination petition (where such signatures are required) are genuine, see Signatures and Deposits and Signatures.
There also needs to be a set process by which candidates for parliament, for presidential elections, or for local government are nominated.
Political Parties
While the need for procedures for nominating individual candidates is evident, it is less obvious that there need to be formal procedures for registering political parties. Indeed, there are still countries - including Britain - where parties are not registered (although the situation is due to change in the near future). There is good reason for not requiring the registration of political parties. The essence of electoral competition in a free society is that it should involve individuals and organizations that are voluntary and independent of unnecessary control by the public authorities.
According to one approach, the very fact that political parties may be of great importance makes it desirable for them to be left to determine their internal affairs. For example, if an existing party splits into two factions, each wishing to use the party name for its candidates, the state should not attempt to step in and set internal party rules to decide the rights of the rival factions. If one faction is determined to take legal action against another, it should be on the basis of the law that applies to everyday private organizations, such as sports clubs or stamp-collecting societies.
Another view is that set regulations laid down by law should govern the way in which parties - both nationally and locally - must run their affairs. Parties should therefore have a legal status and the organizations wishing to gain the privileges of this status should be compelled to register as parties in accordance with a formal registration procedure.
Whether or not parties are subject to special laws depends in considerable measure on the country's culture. For instance, both Britain and the United States have majoritarian, candidate-based electoral systems, but differ in the extent of legal control over internal party affairs. This is far greater in the United States than in Britain.
Cultural factors apart, the question of whether or not parties are required to be registered depends also on several institutional factors.
- Systems of proportional representation are associated with party registration. Under this set of voting systems, voters normally vote for a political party, rather than for a group of individual candidates.
- A legal status for political parties is associated with systems where extra-parliamentary party organizations receive funding from the state.
- The case for party registration becomes more pressing if party labels are used in misleading ways by candidates. In Britain, for example, candidates are currently free to use any six words on the ballot paper to refer to their affiliations. It is possible for a candidate to attempt to obtain votes by using a misleading form of words that it clearly calculated to imply that they represent another, more popular political party. In a much-discussed British case, the Liberal Democrats complained that they had lost crucial votes to an independent candidate who claimed the affiliation of 'Literal Democrat' (i.e. one single letter different from 'Liberal Democrat').
For these reasons, a party registration acts somewhat like the registration of a corporate trademark.
Effects of Party Registration
One argument is that registration need have few or no effects on the internal affairs of a party. It is a simple formality, which, among other things, assures existing parties that their name (and thus their support among voters) will not be stolen by other parties.
An alternative view is that legal requirements such as registration tend inevitably to undermine the voluntary character of parties, and to lead to their centralization and bureaucratization.
Whatever the merits of these positions, the trend to public funding of party organizations, as well as other developments, are leading to the spread of formal party registration.
Examples of Registration Requirements
Australia: 500 members or one member in the existing Parliament.
Canada: 50 candidates in the forthcoming election.
Japan: A system of registration was introduced in 1994 in order to determine which entities would be entitled to receive a portion of the newly introduced public subsidy. A party that does not intend to claim a financial subsidy (the Japan Communist Party, for example) need not register. In order to register, a party must have five or more members in the Diet or have obtained more than two percent of the total votes in the most recent national election. This percentage may be based either on a party's share of proportional representation votes or on its share of votes for electoral district.
Namibia: Signatures and particulars of 500 supporters, registration fee, details of party constitution and members of the executive. The Electoral Commission may refuse to register parties that violate the principles of the Namibian constitution or which discriminate against any persons on grounds of race, ethnicity, gender or economic status.
See also Party/Candidate Registration Responsibilities, PR Systems, Candidates' Qualifications, Candidates Registration and Political Organisations.
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