What use is made of specialist private sector contractors may well be determined by overall government public sector policy and resource base, rather than by the electoral management body, whether the government's political goals are oriented towards developing public sector expertise and capacity or towards stripping public sector functions down to the bare minimum.
In many environments there will be private specialist contractors who can perform much more cost-effectively some of the non-core voting operations functions listed in Responsibilities to Provide Voting Operations Services. However, concentrating solely on cost as the predominant factor when determining whether responsibility for certain voting operations functions should be given to private sector contractors can be dangerous. There are few second chances with voting operations. Bids from private sector organisations to perform voting operations functions need to be rigorously scrutinised to ensure that cost-cutting in pursuit of the contract or to ensure short-term profitability has not damaged reliability, integrity and quality standards. Where private contractors are engaged, they should also be bound to the electoral management body's administrative code of conduct.
