One of the most important elements of a post-conflict election is public trust in the process. If citizens and rival groups have confidence that an election has been free and fair, they are less likely to reject the election and turn to violence to secure outcomes they view as just. Unlike some of Iraq’s other public institutions, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (IECI) successfully delivered its services—three elections in 2005—whose outcomes Iraqis appeared to trust, as evidenced by their growing participation rates over the course of the year. Its ability to generate that public confidence has several causes, but its battle against electoral fraud was one important, and often overlooked, factor.

Mechanisms to Build Voter Trust in the Process

Electoral fraud not only can impact the number of votes a party/candidate receives but also (if widespread enough) can de-legitimize a post-conflict election and lead to renewed violence. The IECI recognized the importance of establishing mechanisms to protect against fraud. Just as importantly, it understood the importance of informing the public about these mechanisms and implementing a complaint adjudication process to respond directly to citizens’ concerns.

The IECI used a range of mechanisms to reduce the opportunity for fraud and identify it should it occur. These include:

1. Tally Monitoring: Any polling stations whose vote tallies were particularly low or higher than its number of registered voters were quarantined for further examination.
2. Audit Teams: Iraqi staff, accompanied by international advisors, conducted audits of selected ballot boxes and the forms completed at polling stations after election day and visited staff before polling day. Polling stations that had encountered trouble in the past were especially targeted for audits.
3. Complaint Procedures: The IECI set up a system to collect, process, and investigate citizen complaints about irregularities in the electoral process.
4. Election Observers: The IECI certified both domestic and international monitors to observe the voting process. In December 2005, there were 300,000 domestic and 700 international observers.
5. Random Pollworker Selection: People were selected to work in the polling centers by lottery in order to minimize the possibility of regional or sectarian bias.

Most of these mechanisms function out of the public eye, with the significant exception of the process of receiving and adjudicating complaints. In practice, complaints rarely lead to discoveries of fraud that actually impact the outcome of an election. This is generally the case because, if complaints uncover fraud, it affects fewer votes than are needed to change the allocation of seats. In Iraq, this was the case. The monitoring of polling station tallies identified problems that complaints did not, and more ballot boxes were voided as a result of that mechanism than as a result of complaints.

However, the complaint often confirmed suspicions that arose from the tally room audits, and tally sheets often definitively confirmed or negated the allegations in a complaint.  The complaint process allows citizens and parties the opportunity to be part of the battle against electoral fraud and therefore can play an important role in building public trust in the electoral system. The process of collecting and adjudicating complaints—if conducted properly—accomplishes three goals that are important in the transition from conflict to peaceful governance: (1) it helps establish trust between citizens and their government, which is a prerequisite to stability,[1] (2) it demonstrates that the election administration does respond to citizen concerns, and (3) it is an opportunity for a government, by allowing an independent election process that includes complaints, to demonstrate its institutional integrity and transparency.

This is certainly not to say that an electoral complaints process can solve the ills that are endemic to failed states, but rather the process offers the public a window into the performance of a transitional institution as it seeks to build confidence in government in the midst of what is hoped will be a transition to peace.

The Election Complaints Process

The IECI faced many challenges that limited its ability to establish the mechanisms responsible for adjudicating election complaints. For example, the small number of experienced election workers available limited the IECI’s ability to process complains as rapidly as it wished. In addition, the security situation limited the number of people willing to work in the Green Zone (the heavily fortified area where the Commission is located).

However, the IECI did establish workable procedures that its available staff could carry out and achieved some notable successes. According to the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, making clear which organizations have jurisdiction over the different components of the complaints procedures is key to the success of the process. They found that the IECI had established a solid legal framework that generally defined clear jurisdictions. In addition, the legal framework gave the IECI the authority it needed to act effectively to investigate and resolve complaints.

Submitting complaints

The complaints process improved incrementally with each new electoral event in 2005. For the October referendum and December legislative elections, Iraqis were offered several methods to submit a complaint: (1) they could complete a complaints form at the polling station, which was placed with the counting forms, (2) they could submit a handwritten complaint at the governorate or national electoral offices, or (3) they could submit a complaint by email. To ensure the complaint was credible, it had to meet several conditions. First, it had to be filed by a direct witness whose name was stated (though not made public) and second, it had to be submitted within three days of the incident.

In the December elections, complaints received at the polling stations were put in a tamper-evident bag (rather than an envelope as previously) for more secure transportation to the complaints offices.

Processing complaints

Both the ratio of complaints to staff and the desire to process complaints expeditiously required that the IECI develop a method to prioritize complaints and quickly identify and investigate those that could affect a result. A team made up of an Iraqi lawyer, an international legal expert, and a translator divided the complaints into two categories: “red” and “non-red.” The team’s goal was to ensure that every complaint was seen within two hours of receipt.

“Red” complaints were issues such as interference with a ballot box before or after polling hours, which affected a significant number of ballots and therefore could impact an election’s outcome. “Non-red” complaints might be incidents that, although serious breaches of election law, impacted only a few votes and therefore were unlikely to change any results.

Corroborating complaints

Every time a red complaint was identified, complaints staff would check with the audit process, tally center staff, and observers to see if other reports from the same area could corroborate the submitted complaint. Despite these efforts, it was not easy to substantiate claims in a country where the rule of law was barely functioning.

In the December elections, 58 complaints were classified as “red” and investigated. Many of them resulted in the cancellation of polling station results and/or the punishment of election officials.

Types of complaints

The IECI received complaints covering a wide range of offenses, including ballot box stuffing/theft, tally sheet tampering, intimidation, violence, voter list deficiencies, shortage of ballots, multiple voting, improper conduct of the police and Iraqi National Guard, voting by security forces who had previously voted (on the special voting day), campaigning within polling centers, and campaigning on the two days of prescribed silence before election day.

In December, many complaints came from a few geographic areas, where local actors had learned to stuff ballot boxes with fraudulent ballots more effectively from the experience of their fellow citizens in January. By October, ballot stuffing had become more sophisticated. In several locations, people stuffed the boxes before the polling center opened. In doing so, some of them created a vote distribution that was not credible, revealing their fraud. However, in one instance, aware of this potential problem, a group ensured a ballot box had about 400 ballots “cast” for one party and about 100 for other parties (polling stations usually had about 500 registered voters). However, their activity was detected through complaints and the box in question was voided.  Other less experienced con artists completed forms showing 600-nil results, an optimism that was revealing.

The benefits of good planning and experience

The IECI’s experience over the course of the three 2005 elections and its establishment of solid procedures paid off. Even in December 2005, when the IECI received 1,985 complaints, the complaints office was able to classify, investigate and act on the “red” complaints within 15 days of election day. (The marked increase in complaints, from 158 in October, does not necessarily indicate more problems with the electoral process; almost certainly, it indicated a greater public awareness of the complaints process.)  

Lessons for Transitional Environments

Iraq’s experience shows that a healthy complaints process that functions efficiently and quickly can result in a public feeling that the process was generally fair and that fraud was often or usually detected. Despite initial objections about the handling of complaints by losing parties, these groups eventually accepted that it had been the voters, not the handling of complaints, that had reduced their share of the vote. The degree of public trust created may be debated, but we argue that the complaints process contributed to the successful administration of Iraq’s 2005 elections.

One key to that success seems to be the speed of the process. In Iraq, the prioritization of complaints that might impact election results proved effective in moving the process forward. However, the volume of complaints and short timeline means that the IECI will need a substantial staff (clerical and legal) to register, organize, and process complaints in the future.

The complaints process cannot always offer a remedy in post-conflict settings—and the public should understand this—but it can be effective in neutralizing fraud and bias, which can be a first step towards encouraging rival parties to accept election results and move towards resolution of their difference through legal, rather than violent, means.

The International Mission for Iraqi Elections evaluated all three elections of the 2005 cycle (including their complaints procedures) and issued several reports about their conclusions.