Public Decision-Making
Early systems for making community decisions through choosing persons to represent the views of populations (and later to act as bodies of governance) relied on simple means--decisions in public on a show of hands, as in ancient Greece by the dropping of ceramic tiles in assigned positions, or as in some Asian and Pacific societies through structured group discussion leading to community consensus. In environments where decision-making powers were restricted to a relatively few persons, or where communities tended to be distinct, often locally self-contained and inwardly focused entities, these systems were viable.
Such systems provided an open community-based way for decision-making and 'voting', though 'community' may have been very restricted in its scope, with personal accountability for voting preferences and the possibility of intimidation where these were looked on unfavourably. Elements of such voting systems still remain in some environments.
Individual Focus
The gradual spread of the secret ballot, in order to protect the views of individuals in increasingly individualist societies, starting in the later stages of the nineteenth century, brought about more formalised voting processes and with them the need for more formal, accountable administrative structures for voting and the provision of a wider range of voting materials. This need was heightened by parallel moves towards the gradual widening of eligibility for participation in voting to embrace all sectors of societies, a process that is still continuing.
Mass Voting
Mass voting brought with it a requirement for more complex organisation, not only in the provision of facilities (voting sites, materials, staffing) to enable people to vote, but in the accountability processes required to ensure that voting involving large numbers of voters was managed in a fashion that provided integrity of processes, equitable outcomes, and the opportunity for all eligible persons to participate freely. Use of mass-produced paper ballots, either of a style on which voters marked their choice of candidate or selected a ballot paper containing their preferred candidate's name, became and remains the most widespread form of recording a vote. The extent of the franchise and associated methods for determining and registering that persons were eligible to vote in an election greatly influenced voting operations methods. These in turn determined methods to be used for the next stage in the process--how votes are to be counted.
Responsibilities
The increasing number of potential participants in voting processes, the complexity of voting processes, and numbers and powers of widely-elected institutions, gradually resulted in a change in perceived responsibilities towards participation in voting--from a situation where participation in voting was a decision to be taken purely on the basis of inquiry and information sought out by each voter to one where the state takes varying levels of responsibility for informing voters of their rights, responsibilities and opportunities for voting. Increasing mobility of populations required a greater range of facilities to be made available for voting, as ever larger proportions of the wide voting population were likely to be absent from their normal residence on voting day.
Voting operations thus evolved from a simple community-based process into something more akin to big business, where consistency of product, product variety and product information availability became paramount needs. One of the great challenges currently facing voting operations administrators is to ensure that this requirement for consistency does not impede the ability to provide service to voters as individuals, living in different communities.
Current Concerns
Current concerns of voting operations remain focused on those dual requirements of voting secrecy and providing freedom and opportunity for all persons (subject to reasonable limitations on the basis of such criteria as age and residence) to vote, though in changing contexts. The gradual introduction of technology into voting processes--through production of up- to-date voters lists and the use of machines and particularly computers for voting--opens up more efficient and potentially more accountable and accurate ways of recording votes. It brings with it a new set of concerns regarding protection of voting secrecy where votes are recorded by electronic means, possibilities of manipulating systems for recording votes, and making these new technologies accessible to and understandable by all potential voters.
Concurrently, the increasing emphasis, through both domestic and international pressure, for the establishment of freely and fairly elected institutions of governance in countries previously governed by other means, has required the adaptation of voting operations norms--generally developed in western-oriented societies--to a much wider range of environments, and the establishment of a significant new growth industry.
