Framework
There are some jurisdictions that aim for political balance in staff in each voting station rather than appointing non-partisan staff. Under these systems, staff could be nominated by political parties for appointment by the electoral management body, or in seeking applications for voting station staff positions, the electoral management body could require applicants to identify their political allegiance.
Under such systems, legal frameworks for staff appointment could be based on:
- appointing an equal number of staff from each of the major political parties to each voting station;
- appointments of staff from each political party according to the proportions of votes cast or representatives elected at the last election.
Effects on Efficiency and Impartiality
This method of recruitment can create some difficulties in achieving efficiency and impartiality of voting station operations. For example:
- Staff with a strong emotional commitment to particular political contestants could too easily confuse the role of looking after political participants' interests with that of providing a neutral service to voters, leading to later challenges to voting station activities.
- Combating perceptions of potential bias may lead to inefficiencies in staffing levels and voter service through the need to have balancing presence of different political participants' nominees when any possibly contentious activities--such as assisting voters to vote, providing voter information, calculating ballot reconciliations, challenges to voter eligibility--are occurring.
- Some staffing models of this nature may exclude staff aligned to all but the two major political participants and may give rise to perceptions of collusion in any decisions against minor parties or independent candidates.
Transitional Elections
There are some few circumstances in which achieving such a political or community balance in voting operations staff may be the most practicable staffing method available. In some environments, the level of political activism may be such that it is not possible to select sufficient staff who are perceived as not being politically active.
Particularly where elections are held as a transitional mechanism in countries emerging from inter-communal conflict, it may not be possible to select voting operations staff who are perceived by all participants as capable of being neutral or impartial. Levels of inter-communal trust can be close to non-existent, and the very membership in a particular nationality or community embodies perceptions of political bias. In such situations, staffing voting stations through pairing of staff from opposed communities or political factions may not be cost-effective, but it may be a useful means of promoting all communities' acceptance of the manner in which voting procedures are implemented.
