Special security measures should be taken by the Electoral Management Body to avoid fraud during the process of releasing results (please refer to Security in Voting Stations for a broader discussion on security). Only authorised persons should have access to the combined results (prior to public release) and modifications to these results should only be done with proper authorisation. These measures should be in place both at the counting centres and at the national office of the Electoral Management Body.
Access to the area where the results are being prepared should be limited. The computerised systems used, if any, for combining the results should have safeguards such as passwords, etc. No one other than authorised persons should be able to access the computerised systems and change results. These persons should be carefully selected and identified in advance.
Police, Armed Forces personnel, or private security officers should be available on request. An Electoral Management Body security contact person should be identified prior to voting day and should have in hand all specific information needed if the assistance of security forces is required. However, such precautions should not affect the transparency of the counting process.
All counting participants, at the national level or at the counting centre, should wear proper identification to avoid any confusion. Identifying badges or cards should be given to the staff of the Electoral Management Body, the representatives of political parties/candidates/options, national/international electoral observers, media reporters, etc. If needed, Armed Forces personnel may be present in the counting centre and should, as well, be required to wear proper identification.
Providing the Official Results
The Electoral Management Body should include all type of ballots; mail-in ballots (absentee votes and other special ballots); advance polls; mobile voting stations; etc., before providing official results. If such ballots are received and counted a few days prior to election day, then the figures can easily be included in the results. However, if such ballots are accepted by the Electoral Management Body up until closing of the polls on election day, then the counting procedures for these ballots should be carefully designed so they will not hold up the process of releasing results within a few days after election day.
If special ballots are counted a few days prior to election day, these results should be kept secure and access to them should be prohibited until closing of the polls on election day. Often these ballots will represent a good statistical indicator of the final outcome of the election. If, by mistake, such results are released before the appropriate time, it could seriously influence either the election outcome or the turnout.
The official results should be released as soon as possible (please refer to Results Reporting for a more elaborate discussion on result reporting). One to five days is considered a reasonable amount of time to release these results, but emphasis should be placed on preparing the results as quickly as possible. The national Electoral Management Body can make the periodic progress report on the results available as they come in.
In many jurisdictions it is considered to be more appropriate that the preliminary indications of the vote be released and announced by the media or non-governmental organizations. However, in the interests of demonstrating transparency, the Electoral Management Body should make the results publicly available as they come in.
The Electoral Management Body should consider the impact of multiple time zones on releasing results. If results are released in one part of the country while polls are still open in other parts of the country in different time zones, it could create confusion or apathy among voters. 'Staggered' voting hours are used in Canada to prevent this kind of situation. However, given the time required to transport ballot boxes to counting centres, this is not generally a problem. The counting can also be delayed if the hours of voting cannot be changed.
Once all results are received from each counting centre, they should be compiled for publication in the national official results for an election or referendum. Such results can also be compiled by region, by province, by political party, or as global national results.
A summary of the final results should be announced as soon as possible by the Electoral Management Body and published in a report. The Electoral Management Body should be the only organization announcing and releasing the final, official results unless the Courts have a role in certifying the results. In most cases it is made very clear that the only official source for any results is the Electoral Management Body.
The Role of the Courts
In some countries, the judiciary is only involved in the electoral process after the election when it comes time to take to court offenders of the electoral law or when a judicial recount is needed.
In other jurisdictions, the Court may have a significant role to play in confirming the results of the election; the results only become official once the Court has confirmed them. Such confirmation should be done as soon as possible in order to avoid political instability and potential delays associated with a transition from a former government to the one elected. The Court may also be directly involved in the count along with the Electoral Management Body. This will generally be the case if final approval of the count must come from the Court.
Publishing the Detailed Results
After the final results are released many jurisdictions require that detailed voting results be published in the official gazette of the government or another official publication. Legally, they should be presented to the legislature, agency, department, or the administrative entity that the Electoral Management Body reports to. A courtesy copy of the published report can be sent to the different political leaders who ran for the election and to all elected candidates. Publishing this detailed report of the election may take several months of preparation and production. Due to financial constrains, in some countries candidates and all other persons, parties, or organization will buy their own copies of the results from the publisher.
Once the final results are known and publicised, the new government should be sworn in as soon as possible to limit the possible political instability and delays in the transition of one government to another. This can often take a week or more, depending on the type of political system used in the country.
Combining Results to Protect the Secrecy of the Vote
The Electoral Management Body can merge or amalgamate results of several voting stations. This is generally done if the voting procedure was such that it became theoretically possible to identify every person whose vote has gone into a particular ballot box, or if the number of votes in the ballot box is so small that there is a significant risk that almost all the votes will be for one candidate or party.
In such cases, the secrecy of the vote could be compromised. Results should be amalgamated with other voting stations. This can also be done in cases where it appears that the secrecy of individual votes can be secured, but there is real risk arising from the fact that a particular voting station, having voted predominantly in a particular way, could result in retribution to the persons who voted at that voting station. Mixing the ballots from two or more boxes from different areas, and then attributing all the votes to one ballot box with proper notation in the results of this having been done can mitigate this problem. Such procedures must take place in the counting centre prior to the ballots being counted.
Merging results can also be done for incarcerated voters, absentee, or other categories of voters using special ballots. Since the ballots are usually counted at the head office of the Electoral Management Body, results can easily be merged with other results to protect the secrecy of the vote. For internal use only, a special notation can be made to keep the audit trail clear.
