Information or Inquiry Officers
In some environments it may be necessary to appoint polling officials whose specific duties are to provide information to voters. The need for special staff to fulfil these functions should be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Conditions that would require special staff for voter inquiries would include:
- a large voting station where other staff will be fully occupied with other core duties;
- where there are significant numbers of new voters or voters not familiar with voting procedures.
Situations where the standard staffing profile for voting stations may need to contain separate information officers in all voting stations, include:
- where there have been radical changes to voting procedures or the introduction of new voting equipment such as computers;
- the population at large has had little experience with voting.
Unless there is a specific task on which all voters need to be informed--e.g., taking them through a trial run on voting machines or computers--information officers can generally be more effectively used in a voting station if they are mobile, rather than stationed at a desk. Such officers can deal with more complex information requests that cannot be handled by other polling officials without slowing down the processing of voters.
As these officers would need to have a good knowledge of voting procedures, it may be appropriate to combine information officer and deputy voting station manager functions in all but very large voting stations.
Interpreters and Language Assistants
It would be cost-effective, in areas where there are communities not fluent in the language used in official voting materials, to engage within other staff categories officials who are fluent in languages commonly used in the area. If this is not possible, service standards can be improved, and voters assisted in voting in the correct manner, by engaging staff solely as interpreters and language assistants for languages spoken by significant numbers of the voters in the area.
Such officials should be subject to the same codes of conduct and voting secrecy requirements as normal polling officials. Their duties should be restricted to translating official documents for voters, without any personal comment, and interpreting information requests by voters to polling officials and the information provided in response to these requests.
