Minimising Effects of Fatigue
Apart from poor training, staff fatigue is the most common cause of errors in voting stations. Voting station managers need to be aware of the fatigue factor in managing their staff. The most effective way of limiting staff fatigue would be to reduce voting hours to a reasonable work day rather than the all too often twelve to fifteen hours of voting, followed by a count; but this is often not within the powers or discretion of voting station managers.
Management of fatigue may be assisted at the staff allocation level by allocating part-day staff available to assist with peak periods, or, where voting stations are also used for the count, using different shifts of voting station officials or employing unskilled 'gopher' staff to set up the count centre layout and clean up the voting station while voting station officials have a break between voting and the count (see Voting Operations Staffing Profiles for discussion of voting station staffing).
Within the voting station, voting station managers can assist in combating staff fatigue by:
- if any allocated staff do not report for duty, attempting to obtain replacement reserve staff, rather than attempting to show superior management skill by making do with less resources;
- formulating meal break and rest break rosters for voting station officials, and ensuring that staff take at least one break during the day. Even though a fifteen-minute break for each staff member may at times slow voter service, staff without a break are likely to provide slower and progressively less accurate service throughout the second half of the day. (It is, of course, sensible to schedule staff breaks to avoid expected peak voting periods.)
- ensuring that there are water/drink supplies available to staff during the day;
- where voting station staff are trained for and capable of doing multiple tasks, rotating staff through these tasks during the day (the different competencies to be applied in different tasks can be revitalised);
- ensuring that where the same staff conducting voting are used for the count, they have a break before counting commences.
Staff Welfare
Other staff welfare measures to be taken by electoral administrators and/or voting station managers that will promote staff motivation during voting day include:
- no gender or other discrimination in the allocation of staff tasks, nor harassment of any staff member due to gender, nationality, religious, or other considerations;
- reliable transport arrangements made for staff to get to and from the voting station;
- adequate security protection within the voting station environment;
- staff payments and other entitlements provided on time and according to agreed schedules.
This last consideration is a highly important factor in the retention of good staff. Effective organisation of payroll for voting station officials is a massive exercise and requires intensive application of management resources for it to proceed accurately and on schedule, but it should be a priority.
