Responsibility Structure
The cost and technical requirements of maintaining permanent electoral structures capable of delivering all election materials and services is not generally a viable proposition. Thus electoral management bodies will rely to a greater or lesser extent on other state agencies or commercial, even non-commercial, contractors for the provision of vital components of voting operations.
The structure of responsibilities for the provision of voting operations materials and services will vary according to capacities both within the electoral management body and within the country as a whole. The basic role of the electoral management body in voting operations is to provide effective management and ensure their freedom, fairness and integrity. This may be achievable cost-effectively through strict oversight of, rather than actual implementation of, many voting operations functions, particularly in more developed countries with highly sophisticated and competitive professional sectors.
Where there is a multiplicity of bodies involved in voting operations, accountabilities, responsibilities and inter-organisational dependencies need to be defined in contractual arrangements that contain clear performance standards, which are monitored by the electoral management body and swiftly enforced. The time frames for voting operations and the immutable nature of the voting day deadline do not allow for long-running disputes over responsibilities, or late discovery that required actions have not been undertaken.
Electoral Management Bodies
The nature and composition of the electoral management body will influence the location of voting operations responsibilities:
- permanent or temporary
- independent of or controlled by executive government
- centralised or decentralised
- comprised of independent members or interest representational members
In many cases, electoral management bodies may not be free to determine these responsibility structures by themselves. Overall public sector policies on service delivery may limit their ability to adopt cost-effective solutions. (For further discussion of electoral management body structures, see Types of Electoral Management Bodies, and of key tasks, see Key Tasks).
In many environments the electoral management body's perceived advantages in providing transparent, impartial, and professional service--where other state agencies or the private sector are compromised by perceptions of bias, lack of professionalism or corruption--means that no matter what the cost or efficiency imperatives, it would be dangerous for election integrity to outsource locally any voting operations functions.
There may be electoral tasks that affect voting operations that, as a matter of state policy, are undertaken by other bodies. Registration of voters and compilation of voters lists, for example, may be the function of another state agency whose skills and resources for dealing with population data give them advantages in this field. Such arrangements require vigilance on the part of electoral management bodies to ensure that a timely, professional and accurate product is received. Additionally, where these tasks are undertaken by other bodies, they must maintain transparency, with provisions for monitoring and observation as though they were undertaken by the electoral management body.
While it is not possible to cover in this brief summary all possible responsibility models, it is useful to look at what the core voting operations functions of electoral management bodies might be, and what voting operations responsibilities could, given a neutral social environment, reside elsewhere if cost-effective.
Core Voting Operations Functions
In assessing what the electoral management body's core voting operations functions are, it is necessary to determine in what areas the electoral management body adds value to voting operations processes through any unique expertise, public perceptions of integrity, and resource advantages. These would definitely include:
- the active oversight, coordination and quality control of all materials and services required for voting operations;
- development of all voting operations policies and procedures;
- development and monitoring of all voting operations calendars and schedules;
- specifications for design and production of all voting operations material and equipment;
- selection of voting sites;
- liaison with political participants, including advice on administrative requirements;
- management of voting stations, including determination of staffing and materials schedules, and managing voting day operations;
- management of ballot counts;
- determination and announcement of election results;
- monitoring of integrity of voting processes.
Other voting operations functions that do not involve an election-specific skill base possibly can be contracted elsewhere, in accordance with the electoral management body's available expertise, resources, relative costs and performance abilities. Such contracting does not abrogate any of the responsibility of the electoral management body to ensure that these functions are completed fully in accordance with the principles of voting operations (see Guiding Principles). Given the time- and quality-critical nature of voting operations, the levels of reliability and quality of service that can be provided are vital factors. In determining whether functions can be outsourced, these factors must outweigh any potential cost savings.
Functions That Could Be Outsourced
Some likely or possible functions that could be undertaken by outside organisations include:
Security. Contracted to specialist regional, national or international policing, or if necessary military agencies (see Security).
Procurement. To increase perceptions of transparency, or in line with auditing requirements, procurement may be placed in the hands of official tender boards (see Materials and Equipment).
Voter information. Materials design and production, media placement and information delivery may be better handled by specialist communications agencies, and assisted by using community bodies.
Materials design for forms and ballot papers. This responsibility may be better placed with communications and production specialists, working to strict electoral management body specifications.
Materials production. While low volume forms may be effectively produced in-house, maintaining large scale production facilities for high volume forms and other voting operations equipment and materials is unlikely to be an effective use of electoral management body resources.
Selection of staff for voting stations and ballot counting centres. This is a massive task at a time of other intense demands on electoral management bodies resources. Given the dispersed and labour-intensive nature of voting operations, this may be better left to recruitment experts working to strict, monitored selection standards.
Development of training material and implementation of training sessions for polling staff. This function may be more cost-effectively handled by utilising existing educational sector resources working to electoral management body specifications.
Polling staff payroll management. Voting day will see a massive increase in electoral management body staff. To maintain, for these infrequent events, in-house staff payment facilities capable of handling this increase may not be an effective use of electoral management body resources.
Voting site mapping. The census bureau or other agencies with existing geographic information systems (GIS) resources may be highly qualified for mapping.
Out-of-country voting operations. This function may be more effectively handled by contracting existing resources in external diplomatic, trade or other government missions, where these are publicly perceived as providing an impartial service.
Development of computer software and systems. Outside specialist companies can provide this service to electoral management body specifications.
Operation of computer hardware platforms. Given high investment levels required for computer systems that will be used infrequently for elections, use of systems and networks from outside service providers can be a cost-effective alternative, as long as reliability, access and integrity can be guaranteed to the required standards.
Logistics and storage. Similarly to materials and equipment production, the maintenance by the electoral management body of permanent in-house transport and warehousing facilities (or even undertaking short-term fleet or storage management) sufficient for voting operations may not to be an effective use of internal resources.
In considering outsourcing of any of these non-core voting operations functions, a longer-term view of how developing any dependency on external service providers will affect the future reliability, quality and costs of voting operations needs to be carefully assessed. The advantages of keeping the following areas in-house, for example, need to be carefully weighed against benefits of external supply:
- internal skill development;
- consistency in service delivery framework (rather than developing fresh relationships with external service suppliers each election);
- the internal ethos of delivery to deadlines.
Development of in-house capabilities within the electoral management body may better meet the longer term needs.
Where voting operations functions are contracted out, it needs to be determined whether these responsibilities could be better undertaken by
