Managing the Civil Register
The civil register, or population register, has a variety of uses, only one of which is as a voters list.
Election administrators should consider how the electoral uses of the civil registry are managed,
and how this relates to the other uses of the population register.
A Separate Voters List
Countries using the civil registry have a variety of administrative arrangements for the electoral use
of the registry. In Argentina, the civil register is used to create a separate voters list, with the latter
maintained by a separate authority, the electoral judge. Changes to the population register are
processed by the National Register of Persons, an agency of the Interior Ministry. The National
Register checks, classifies, and processes the information. This, in turn, is forwarded to the
electoral secretariat of each district for inclusion in the voters list.102
In the Argentinean case, an physical voters list is printed, both an a provisional list and a final or
definitive list, which reflects the state of the register at any given time. This is referred to as the
master list. The voters list, in contrast, is defined in a strict sense as the file that contains the
totality of data on voters living in a given district.103
No Separate Voters List
In other contexts in which the civil registry is used, there is no separate department or agency that
is responsible for the voters list as distinct from the civil register, and possibly no separate, physical
voters list at all. Sweden provides an interesting example. The local taxation office is responsible
for maintaining accurate records for the civil register for all residents in the local area.104
There are population specialists within the local tax offices, but no separate election unit per se.
Furthermore, there is no printing of a definitive voters list. Instead, the voters list is a subset of the
records that exist in the population register. This list never closes, though, because it plays an
essential role in providing civic information to government departments and agencies, as well as to
private section companies, such as banks and insurance companies.
