Basic Issues
The tasks of ensuring that the best value is obtained from observation of voting warrants discussion as to how this may be achieved during the maximised efforts on and during the period surrounding voting day. (For general management issues surrounding the recruitment, deployment, and control of electoral observers, see Election Observation. For logistics arrangements to ensure electoral observers can carry out their assigned tasks, see at Observer Logistics.)
Voting Observation Objectives
To enable effective observation, there should be clear objectives for the independent observation of voting and the ballot count. These could be summarised as follows:
- to determine whether voting and count process frameworks and their implementation were in accordance with the country's electoral laws;
- to determine whether the voting and count processes legislative and procedural framework and implementation were in accordance with international good practice;
- where there are any negative answers to the above two points, to determine if such deficiencies in the framework or practices materially affected the results of the election, or overall public perceptions of the legitimacy of the election and its outcomes;
- to identify and report on good practices used, and make sound recommendations for improvement where practices are deficient.
To do this, the critical areas for observation must be identified in electoral observation planning (see Preparatory Observations, Voting Hours Observation, Observation of Counts and Results).
Monitoring by Representatives of Parties/Candidates
For representatives of political parties or candidates, the monitoring objective is more narrow: to monitor that the voting process framework and its implementation does not disadvantage in any way that party's candidates. (For further discussion of this issue, see Political Parties as Election Monitors.)
Voting Observation Practices
Independent observers rights and responsibilities are detailed at Observer Rights and Responsibilities. For observing voting processes, some of these issues can be reinforced.
Independent electoral observers must be non-partisan--neither members nor supporters of any political party or participant, nor having taken part in political activity during the election campaign.
Independent observers must not interfere in electoral processes. Observed irregularities should be immediately, factually, and thoroughly documented (e.g., event, time, location, witnesses, persons involved, their role or affiliation, and resolution achieved), taken up in an objective manner with electoral authorities, and political participants may be informed. Given the speed with which activities occur during voting, swift reporting to electoral authorities with recommendations for solutions to irregularities found may prevent the later voiding, or public perception of illegitimacy, of the election. For this, the electoral observation management structure must permit quick access to senior electoral officials. However, electoral observers are there to observe and report, not to countermand electoral officials' directions.
Independent observers must be free to gather information. There must be clarity on the accreditation process and electoral observer access rights. Electoral observation management should be free to set its own schedules of voting locations to visit (within security parameters), and voting documents to view, rather than have these dictated by state authorities. For this reason, general accreditation should be sought for independent electoral observers (and carried with them at all times), rather than restricted accreditation to particular voting locations only.
Finally, independent observers must be resourceful, investigative, objective, and courteous in their approach to gathering information.
Issues to Observe
Issues to pay particular attention to during observation of voting processes will vary, according to the environment, and will often need to be kept flexible. Monitoring of complaints and challenges by political participants may well indicate areas to which higher priority for observation may need to shift. Codifying electoral observation priorities in checklist form will assist both individual electoral observers' focus and standardisation of field reporting.
There will be specific issues to observe:
These references do not provide exhaustive listings (different electoral systems will require different electoral observation plans), but they do indicate the broad areas of observation of processes affecting voting that need to be undertaken for a valid picture of performance and legitimacy to emerge.
