Recruitment Requirements
The number and skills of personnel selected for observation should be determined with reference to the observation management plan. Numbers required will depend on factors such as:
- whether it is to be a long-term or short-term observation program;
- the geographic scope of locations to be covered;
- whether full coverage or sample coverage of election processes is being undertaken.
Reserve staff should be recruited to cover absences through sickness, injury, fatigue or unavailability of any selected staff. In recruiting observation teams, attention should be paid to achieving ethnic and gender balance within the skills mix required.
Sources and Recruitment Methods
Sources of observers will vary widely according to the nature of the observation project and the resources available to the organisation conducting observation. This issue is dealt with under Party and Candidate Representatives, Local NGOs and CBOs, and International Organisations. Whatever the source, observers need to be recruited in time to become familiar with the election background and processes before their deployment.
Skills and Personal Qualities
Depending on the nature of the election observation task, varying generalist, professional and technical skills will be required of observers. As training for observers is typically brief (see Training for Observers), these skills should be already possessed by observers selected. In developing observation plans, skill profiles for all required staff should be developed well in advance of the recruitment process and recruitment made on the basis of these profiles.
Observation planners should be very aware of the basic types and mix of persons whom they are seeking to recruit. They may be professionals with a high level of skill in election administration and its associated processes or election observation or amateurs who may be well informed on general political and sociological issues but who do not have technical election knowledge. A preponderance of the latter, however, may dilute the effectiveness of the observation program.
Basic Skills and Personal Qualities
Basic skills that are vital for successful observation include arithmetic skills, familiarity with equipment to be used (telephone, fax, photocopiers, and computers where these are to be used), the ability to communicate clearly, negotiation skills, and familiarity with electoral processes.
Observing elections can be physically taxing and require a keen eye and ear for the environment. Observers must be in good physical health, as they may be required to walk or stand for lengthy periods, and in some circumstances, endure adverse living and working conditions. They should possess good eyesight and hearing.
While elections may be used as a conflict resolution process, they generally give rise to their own conflicts. Personal qualities of tact, discretion, sound judgment, cool-headedness under pressure and perseverance are essential for observation team members.
Professional Skills
The increasing technical sophistication of election operations in all countries requires observers with highly developed professional skills to monitor activities such as compilation of voters lists, information transmission and result determination, electoral boundary delimitation and media operations. Consequently expert observers in such fields as legal analysis, media technology and analysis, statistical analysis, geographic information systems, computer software, networking, and security will be required for these key areas. In developing staffing profiles for observation projects these skill requirements must be included for observation to be effective.
It is important that observers are fully aware of communications occurring around them--preferably by fluency in the language of the region in which they are observing, or alternatively by ensuring that observers at all times have access to interpreters.
