Many policymakers have responded to the pandemic by postponing elections, with at least fifty-five countries and territories between February and May 2020, rescheduling the polls. Postponing an election is not quite as undemocratic as it sounds but others have forged on by trying to adapt elections to the pandemic—or are actively trying to find ways to do this. This has included proposals to hold all-postal elections in Poland, encouraging early voting in South Korea or the use of protective clothing by electoral officials in Israel. A coalition of US academics have set out proposals for fair elections in November 2020.

Decisions are usually best made to suit local circumstances and pressures. There are some universal questions that we can ask about the running of elections, however. In a recent book on Comparative Electoral Management, I set out a framework for evaluating the running of elections. This framework is set out in full in Chapter 4, which is free to download here (p.61-71). This framework can also be used to consider the merits—or otherwise—of the reforms being put forward.

The starting point is that elections are not entirely different in nature to other public services such as schools and hospitals. Some of the tools that have been used to assess them can therefore be adapted to assess how elections are run. At the heart of the electoral process, however, is democracy. David Beetham’s focus on a democratic society as one where the key principles of political quality and popular control of government are achieved therefore provides a normative anchor for how we should assess the electoral process. The framework sets out five dimensions of electoral management that are essential for democratic ideals (Figure 1 and Table 1).

Firstly, we should focus on the decision-making processes in place for electoral management bodies. If decisions are going to be made due to COVID-19, the question is not just what decision is made, but how that decision is made and by whom? Good electoral management requires that these decisions are not just made behind closed doors by senior electoral officials—or that a small clique of politicians dictate new rules from Parliament. There should be widespread consultation and public involvement. In emergency situations the extensiveness of public deliberations can often curtailed by time, but a wide variety of stakeholders should be consulted and a digital society now enables calls for views from the public, focus groups and public polls. The probity of the decisions made and accountability mechanisms in place should be considered too.

Secondly, the resourcing of any reforms is vitally important. A decision, for example, to switch from holding elections in person at a polling station to rely on mail-in ballots is going to have a major consequence for staffing levels, working practices, postage and printing costs. Who is going to pay for this? When? Do electoral officials have sufficient financial resources, staff and equipment to implement the reforms? The sufficiency of this funding is vitally important so that electoral officials don’t find themselves with cash crises during the electoral process—or find themselves with unfunded blackholes afterwards. We should expect the unexpected. The availability of contingency funds is therefore vitally important too. 

Thirdly, the quality of services to the citizen have an obvious importance. ‘Put the voter first’ is a common mantra for electoral services around the world—but there is a major risk that the service provided will be compromised during these difficult times. Convenience is critically important. Information about how to vote should be readily available and the process as simple and streamlined as possible. Accuracy is critical. The pressures on electoral officials will be immense, but there should be no compromises when voters consider whether their vote had been counted. Putting the voter first also means enforcing the rules against them and their fellow citizens. If polling stations are required to close at 19:00, then they should close at 19:00. If postal votes need to have been received by a certain date, then that date should be absolute. 

Fourthly, the likely effects of any COVID-19 reforms should be mapped against service outcomes. The service outcomes for private companies are usually profit, share value and revenue. When it comes to the implementation of the electoral process service outcomes are no less relevant. They would include voter turnout. Elections held during a pandemic are likely to be hit by a drop in turnout because citizens might be reluctant to travel to the poll and there is therefore a strong case for compensatory mechanisms to ensure inclusive elections. Electoral officials, of course, are unable to shape this key metric alone as it depends on many factors. But how the election is run is one of them. The accuracy and completeness of the electoral register are essential for well-run elections and many countries rely on the canvassing of properties to keep registers accurate. However, South Africa was amongst many countries to have to suspend voter registration initiatives in response to the pandemic leaving the register likely to be affected. How reforms might shape the volume of rejected ballot papers, levels of electoral fraud, possible service denial or ignite violence all need measurement and consideration too.

Fifth, stakeholder satisfaction is crucial to the electoral process. Citizens are one obvious stakeholder and their satisfaction with any reforms that are made should therefore be considered and monitored. Satisfaction amongst parties and civil society is crucial for ensuring support in the democratic system and is likely to require cross-party working. Often forgotten is the level of staff satisfaction amongst the electoral officials on the ground. Staff satisfaction matters for instrumental reasons. The effects are commonly thought to include improved retention and performance. There are also moral reasons: organizations have a duty of care towards their employees—especially where there could be physical risks to their health during the pandemic.

There are no easy solutions for policymakers through these logistical and moral mazes when decisions have to be made within short time frames. It is clear, however, that the election will affect all citizens, civil society groups and political actors. Better decisions will therefore be made where the decision-making process is as inclusive and consultative as possible. And anchoring decisions against democratic principles is imperative.

Toby James is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of East Anglia. This piece was first published on the International IDEA website.

Toby James, University of East Anglia

Local elections scheduled to take place in England and Wales in the first week of May – including the London mayoral vote – have been postponed as part of attempts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus in the UK. Following advice from medical experts, the UK government decided to hold off until May 2021.

Across the English Channel, French president Emmanuel Macron considered cancelling mayoral and municipal elections, but later judged that they should take place as planned. The first round of voting went ahead on March 15 “to ensure the continuity of our democratic life”.

Some lower profile contests might not be mourned by the public during times of major concern, but their absence raises the question of whether other elections should be postponed. Votes are on the horizon in 2020 for Mali, Armenia, North Macedonia, South Korea, Serbia, Bolivia, Poland, Malawi, Iceland, Mongolia, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Ivory Coast and the US, to name just some.

Should these events be cancelled? There are pros and cons on both sides of the debate.

Protecting officials and citizens

Elections have been rescheduled before, of course. In 2018, the Democratic Republic of Congo delayed the presidential contest because of Ebola. In 2001 the UK general election was held off because of the spread of foot and mouth disease across the country.

The most obvious (and important) reason for postponing an election is the health of everyone involved. Elections should be the opposite of “social distancing”. They are public events that deliberately bring together people to exchange ideas and transmit infectious arguments about the future direction of a community. They should involve candidates and their supporters reaching out to the public to get the vote out. Door knocking, leaflet distribution in busy city centres, and mass rallies with activists drumming up support are all signs of a healthy election.

Elections are also supposed to be a time for talking. Simply holding an election is insufficient because citizens should actively consider their interests and the issues; weigh up competing arguments made by candidates; and discuss them around the dinner table, in the coffee shop and street corner.

Then, on election day, citizens turn up to polling stations and are handed a ballot paper. In many countries, electronic kiosks are installed requiring each voter to touch a screen to cast their ballot. It isn’t just the voters that we should be concerned about, but staff who often work full days (and nights) to keep democracy moving.

My research with Alistair Clark, reader in politics at Newcastle University, shows that in the UK, for example, the poll worker labour force is made up of mostly women (63%) with an average age of 53 and they are very often retired. In some countries, serving as a poll worker is a compulsory civic duty.

Turnout is also likely to be hit if an election is held during an epidemic because many people may stay away from the polls. Iran saw low turnout in its February 2020 elections amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Lower turnout as a whole is bad for democracy but there is also the question of whether turnout could end up being lower among particular demographic groups. There is always an unevenness in who votes and coronavirus could introduce significant new inequalities because elderly voters and those with underlying health conditions may decide to stay away from the polls just in case. Holding elections at a time when some demographics are at a higher risk would seem to confound the principle that the electoral process should provide equality to everyone and that measures should be put in place to mitigate and address turnout inequalities.

The dangers of waiting

Postponing a vote could, however, mean that leaders and representatives who are not necessarily doing a good job will remain in office for longer. Citizens will be temporarily denied their right to shape public policy – perhaps at exactly the moment that they need to.

In some cases, there will be concern that a government may capitalise on a crisis to avoid holding an election at all. If one is postponed because of coronavirus, will it be rearranged? If so, when? Incumbent governments could be given an opportunity to reschedule at a moment when the opinion polls are more favourable.

Postponement should therefore be a last resort so that we can be reassured that democratic life will continue. Where postponement is on the cards, cross-party consensus on a clearly agreed timetable for rescheduling is crucial. Democracy relies on responsible political parties, who should act as custodians for the process and not be opportunistic.

Remote voting: making elections safe

The need for elections to be postponed is much weaker where there are is already the provision of postal voting and/or remote electronic voting, for example, to allow citizens to vote from home. These are obvious workarounds for epidemics which could be expanded. This is already possible in many countries. South Korea is currently putting emergency mechanisms in place so that citizens can vote from hospitals ahead of the April 2020 elections.

The coronavirus pandemic is a reminder of the unexpected risks involved in running an election, albeit on an epic scale. It’s impossible to run an election at a time like this – or during a natural disaster – without making some compromises. These votes will never end up being the democratic ideal. But postponing poses risks to democracy, too. Contingency planning is the best hope of keeping the electoral show on the road.

Toby James, Visiting Academic at International IDEA and Professor of Politics and Public Policy, University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Over 500 election officials were reported to have died delivering the combined Indonesian elections in April 2019. The cause wasn’t election violence or riots from competing forces trying to seize power, but heart attacks, hepatic comas, strokes and respiratory failures, as employees laboured under extremely difficult conditions.

Although the precise number of deaths attributable to the election has been debated, the case shone a light on the much-overlooked area of how elections are run. The challenge of running elections amounts to the largest peacetime logistical operation, with the highest possible stakes. The Indonesian election involved over seven million officials, 810,000 polling stations and 193 million voters. The process included transporting votes from remote parts of the country via boat or horseback.

Indonesia is the world’s third-largest democracy and might appear to be an extreme case, but the challenges of organising an election are echoed across the globe. UK electoral officials recently organised elections for the European Parliament, but with little more than two weeks’ notice that the election would take place. Initially, the government was adamant there would be no election and there was therefore no need to prepare anything. The announcement there would be an election after all came only days after officials had organised local elections. The European Parliament elections gained global news coverage as many EU citizens were unsuccessfully registered and so denied a vote and electoral officials were caught in the storm. Problems are also commonly reported at election time in other countries such as the US.

Over 500 election officials were reported to have died delivering the combined Indonesian elections in April 2019.  The cause wasn’t election violence or riots from competing forces trying to seize power; but heart attacks, hepatic comas, strokes, and respiratory failures, as employees laboured under extremely difficult conditions.

Although the precise number of deaths attributable to the election have been debated, the case shone a light on the much overlooked area of how elections are run.  The challenge of running elections amounts to the largest peacetime logistical operation, with the highest possible stakes.  The Indonesian election involved over 7 million officials, 810,000 polling stations and 193 million voters.  The process included transporting votes from remote parts of the country via boat or horseback.

Indonesia is the world’s third largest democracy and might appear to be an extreme case, but the challenges of organising an election are echoed across the globe.  UK electoral officials recently organised elections for the European Parliament, but with little more than two weeks-notice that election would take place. Before that, the government was adamant that there would be no elections and there was therefore no need to prepare anything.  The announcement that there would be an election came only days after officials had organised local elections.  The elections gained global news coverage as many EU citizens were unsuccessfully registered in the #DeniedMyVote and electoral officials were caught in the storm.  Problems are commonly reported at election time in other countries such as the US.

It’s a global problem

The challenge of organising elections is a global problem. It is also one that citizens take for granted until things go wrong, and one that researchers thus-far have widely overlooked. But as figure 1 below shows, there is enormous variation in the quality of electoral management in different types of society, whether free, partially free or not free.

Analysis of the organisations that run elections has been very limited, however.  At the start of the 1990s, in the so-called third wave of democratisation, many more states around the world began to run elections.  There was an urgent need for electoral advice.  The consensus amongst the international community at the time was that having an independent electoral commission was important to prevent government interference in elections in these fragile, new democracies.  Academic knowledge lagged behind, however.  Most studies, when they emerged many years later, produced very mixed results about whether it was worth having an independent body or not.

Building Better Elections from Research

In our newly published research in International Political Science Review, however, we are able to provide a global view of how elections are run, why it matters and how it can be improved.  We undertook surveys of electoral management bodies (‘EMBs’) around the world to work out systematically who they are, what their organisational features are and who the staff are that run elections.

This is the most detailed picture of how the world runs elections to date.  It allows us to identify ‘what works’ which could inform practice worldwide.

We argue that there are seven ways in which EMBs vary.  The degree of centralisation, independence, administrative capacity, the scope and division of tasks, relations to external actors, their use of technology and the characteristics of the workforce.

All of these affects electoral integrity in different ways.

Insisting that the administrators that run elections are independent of government is not such a waste of time after all, we show.  When electoral management bodies are able to operate independently from governments, elections are of significantly higher integrity. However, such de facto independence is only weakly related to the institutional design of the EMB, hence changes in EMB institutional design should probably be considered as only one of multiple interventions to strengthen de facto EMB independence.

The resources that EMBs have matter too.  The special issue examines how there are varying degrees of capacity around the world and within countries too, such as the UK, where there are considerable differences in the distribution of resources.  But capacity isn’t just about cash.  There are many ways to measure it and an innovative method is introduced – by evaluating the websites of the EMBs.

Meanwhile EMB workforces vary enormously around the world from just a handful of permanent officials in some states, to hundreds in another.  The special issue exposes some common truths, however.  There remains a considerable gender bias in the profession with women less likely to feature in senior positions and describing a more critical working environment.  Working in elections involves teamwork and strong civic duty, but also stress and high workloads.  And these things matter, not just to the workers themselves, but to voters.  We find that states which have better working conditions, lower levels of stress in the workforce and who involve their workers in decision making processes, run elections better.

Electoral commissions may therefore rarely feature in the headlines, apart from when they are accused of being at fault.  But they are nonetheless fundamental for democracy.  Going forward, policy makers worldwide should promote the independence, capacity and gender equality within EMBs; employee stress should be tackled; and a greater voice should be given to those working on elections.

Toby James is Head of Politics and Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of East Anglia, UK.  He is author of Comparative Electoral Management (Routledge).

Leontine Loeber, is a PhD Student at the University of East Anglia, UK

Holly Ann Garnett is an Assistant Professor at the Royal Military College, Canada.

Carolien van Ham is Professor of Comparative Politics, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands

All four are co-convenors of the Electoral Management Network

This post was first published on the Democratic Audit.

Why are you doing this research?

The aim of the survey is to gather information about poll workers’ and presiding officers’:

• Reasons why staff volunteered to work on the election
• Their training for the election
• Experience of the election
• Socio-demographic characteristics

Where will it be run?

The study is being run across all areas holding English local elections, except the pilot areas where the Electoral Commission have a survey in place, asking similar questions.

Will it be anonymous?

Data will be aggregated so that your local authority is not identifiable and individual responses will be kept strictly confidential.

How will the information be used?

The survey will lead to reports and academic articles which we will be very happy to make freely available to you at the conclusion of the project.  You can sign up for updates on our research via the newsletter .

Our aim is to help to develop lesson learning and evidence based policy.  You can read our study of the 2015 General Election or out Evaluation of Electoral Administration the EU Referendum, which was undertaken for the Electoral Commission.  After a similar study in 2018, a short report was provided for the Association of Electoral Administrators ARENA magazine.

What will electoral officials need to do?

The survey is online.  We are simply asking that an electoral official forwards a link with the survey in to all staff who are involved on the day.  If you could flag the survey in the training sessions, and send an email reminder then this would be really helpful too.

How can we take part?

The researchers will be writing to public elections address – so watch out for that email.  But you can also get in contact with the researchers direct on t.s.james@uea.ac.uk or alistair.clark@newcastle.ac.uk.

What questions will be in the survey?

A copy of the survey will be downloaded here:

2019 Poll Workers Local Election Questionnaire

Please complete the online survey – do not fill in the .pdf.  

The survey will open after the close of polls and will remain open until 23:59 2^nd June 2019.

Thank you for taking part in the project

Image credit: Adam Tinworth

In our study, we provide a examination of the implementation of a new photo identification (ID) requirement for voters in Missouri. Over the past year, the photo ID law has been enforced in almost 200 municipal and special elections administered by local jurisdictions around the state of Missouri.  We observe two types of local variation in implementation: (1) whether to share information about the voters who are checked in without a valid photo ID; and (2) the frequency of non-photo voters casting ballots. We observe higher rates of non-photo ID voters in local jurisdictions using electronic poll books to check in voters. The learned behavior of some poll workers and voters suggests that the use of polling place technology should be closely observed when photo ID laws are enforced.

The photo ID requirement in Missouri took effect June 1, 2017. The identification requirement applies to in-person voters, but not to people who vote absentee by mail. Voters who lack photo ID but who provide a valid non-photo ID and sign a statement attesting to their lack of a photo ID can still vote a regular ballot. Those without any acceptable identification cast a provisional ballot. The provisional voters will have their ballots counted if they return to the polling place on Election Day with a valid photo ID or if their signature at the polling place matches their signature in the voter registration file.

Election administration in Missouri is highly decentralized, with 116 local jurisdictions that enjoy considerable discretion in choosing their own election technology. To date, local jurisdictions in Missouri have held almost 200 low-turnout local and special elections since the photo ID requirement took effect. As a result, every jurisdiction in the state has administered at least one election with the photo ID requirement.

One element of policy implementation is sharing information with the public about the new policy. After each election we sent a public records request via email to the top county election official asking for the names and addresses of each registered voter who cast a provisional ballot or affidavit ballot without a photo ID. There is disagreement among local officials about whether the forms completed by voters lacking photo identification are public records. Roughly half of local jurisdictions partly fulfilled our records requests, with Democratic officials and rural jurisdictions most likely to share information.

Based on the data we have collected from state and local officials we have complete voter totals for 130 elections held to date under the photo ID requirement in Missouri. In those elections roughly 1.9% of voters checked in without valid photo ID. The vast majority of the non-photo ballots were cast by voters who signed an affidavit after showing non-photo identification. Among the provisional ballots, 79% were counted, mostly because of a signature match.

There is considerable variation across jurisdictions in the number of voters who check in without valid photo ID. Our clearest finding is that jurisdictions using electronic poll books check in more non-photo voters (2.4%, on average) than jurisdictions using paper poll books (0.5%, on average). A little more than half of the counties in Missouri use electronic poll book, and they are more common in highly populated urban jurisdictions. As the figure below shows, electronic poll books seem to produce a higher rate of non-photo ID voters than paper poll books, regardless of location. Conversations with local officials indicate that many jurisdictions programmed electronic poll books to scan voter ID cards, which do not include a photograph. Some voters and poll workers grew accustomed to this practice before the photo ID requirement took effect.

We urge some caution in extrapolating from our observations of photo ID implementation to higher turnout elections coming soon. Nevertheless, local elections in Missouri indicate that poll worker behavior and the use of check-in technology deserve careful scrutiny when implementing photo ID laws. In particular, the way electronic poll books are used to sign in voters may overstate the number of actual voters without photo ID. It is fortunate that small-scale local elections have provided the first run for new photo ID requirement in Missouri to help work out the kinks before a major election takes place.

Joseph Anthony is a PhD Candidate in Political Science, University of Missouri, St. Louis.  David Kimball is Professor at tge University of Missouri in St. Louis.

The workshop considered how elections could be better run during times when electoral officials face major new challenges such as cybersecurity and resource constraint, and when voting practices are often not as inclusive as they could be.

It was held in collaboration with MIT Election Lab, the Electoral Integrity Project of Sydney/Harvard University and the Royal Military College of Canada.

More than 100 delegates from around the world, with representatives from academia, the international and national practitioner community and industry, attended.

In an age where electoral results have become more unpredictable, running elections that have the confidence of the public and electoral community could never be more important.

A roundtable seminar included representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and state electoral officials, who reflected on the challenges of cyber-security which followed after the 2016 Presidential election.

The Electoral Management Research Network was launched last year to bring together scholars and practitioners, with the aim of making the latest scientific research, policy advice and news about running elections accessible for practitioners, researchers and students. http://www.electoralmanagement.com/electoral-management-network/network-members/.

Selected papers from the conference are available on the network’s website http://www.electoralmanagement.com/events/, and blogs from delegates who presented papers will be added next week. http://www.electoralmanagement.com/blog/.

Watch out for the journal special issues that will be on their way out next year!

Why are you doing this research?

The aim of the survey is to gather information about poll workers’ and presiding officers’:

• Reasons why staff volunteered to work on the election
• Their training for the election
• Experience of the election
• Socio-demographic characteristics

Where will it be run?

The study is being run across all areas holding English local elections, except the pilot areas where the Electoral Commission have a survey in place, asking similar questions.

Will it be anonymous?

Data will be aggregated so that your local authority is not identifiable and individual responses will be kept strictly confidential.

How will the information be used?

The survey will lead to reports and academic articles which we will be very happy to make freely available to you at the conclusion of the project.  You can sign up for updates on our research via the newsletter .

Our aim is to help to develop lesson learning and evidence based policy.  You can read our study of the 2015 General Election or out Evaluation of Electoral Administration the EU Referendum, which was undertaken for the Electoral Commission.

What will electoral officials need to do?

The survey is online.  We are simply asking that an electoral official forwards a link with the survey in to all staff who are involved on the day.  If you could flag the survey in the training sessions, and send an email reminder then this would be really helpful too.

How can we take part?

The researchers will be writing to public elections address – so watch out for that email.  But you can also get in contact with the researchers direct on t.s.james@uea.ac.uk or alistair.clark@newcastle.ac.uk.

What questions will be in the survey?

A copy of the survey can be downloaded here.  Please complete the online survey – do not fill in the .pdf.  

The survey will open after the close of polls and will remain open for one month.

Thank you for taking part in the project

Image credit: Adam Tinworth

The Electoral Management Research Network aims to bring together scholars studying electoral management from around the world, providing a platform for sharing research findings and stimulating collaborative research projects.

It was formally launched at a workshop on “Building Better Elections” in Oslo as part of the ECPR General Conference.  Papers were presented at the workshop by leading academics, but also representatives from organisations that included the United Nations, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the South Korean Electoral Commission. Topics included election management body design and organization, electoral assistance and dispute resolution, the use of technologies, convenience voting, and the regulation of new media.   The papers can be downloaded from the network website.

The network is co-convened by Toby S. James (University of East Anglia), Holly Ann Garnett (The Australian National University and University of British Columbia), Leontine Loeber (University of East Anglia) and Carolien van Ham (University of New South Wales) and has been launched with support from the University of East Anglia.

The Network hosts a blog and wiki of knowledge on managing elections for researchers and practitioners on www.electoralmanagement.com.  Information will shortly be available about the second workshop, which will be held at Harvard University in August 2018.

Elections in the U.K. are well run. Some may have complaints about the majoritarian electoral system, the methods for regulating party funding and even how the electoral registration process works.  But when it comes to managing the poll, the evidence is that things go smoothly.  And for that we owe much to the hard work  and dedication of electoral officials.

But this is not so say that there are not emerging challenges.  One of these challenges is resourcing.  Concerns about cuts to hospitals and schools have been a major concern in Britain after recent years of public sector austerity since the 2007-8 financial crisis. But as Britain goes to the polls for the general election, what about elections themselves?  Earlier research documented how many electoral officials said that they lacked resources.  A shortfall in funding is often claimed to exist in American elections, with the New York Times recently blasting ‘the nation’s underfunded, patchwork election system and obsolete balloting machinery’.  Real data on how much money electoral officials receive is not readily available in most countries, however.

A new report entitled Funding Electoral Services in England and Wales provides fresh insight into the funding that electoral service departments in local government receive and have spent in England and Wales from 2010-11 to 2015-16 (a more detailed analysis will shortly appear in the journal Public Money and Management).

Local authorities have seen a marginal real terms increase in their budgets between the financial years 2010-11 and 2015-16 by £10,200 per local authority. However, this overall picture masks the huge variations in increases during a period of public sector cuts. As the research shows that there was a real terms fall in nearly half of authorities (43%) – often in very significant numbers.

There is evidence to suggest that many local authorities do lack resources because they are increasingly over-budget.  During 2015-16, electoral services were running 129 per cent over budget on average.  This is a rise from 104 per cent in 2011-12.

The effects on voter outreach work

Does this matter?

It is difficult to measure the effects of funding cuts because of limited data on the quality of electoral administration, especially at a local level.

The report, however, shows that the areas that have seen more cuts to funding on elections are less likely to undertake a public engagement strategy and marginally less likely to undertake school outreach activities. In short, the democratic process can be a casualty of public sector cuts. At a time when there are concerns about turnout in the forthcoming polls, this is of critical importance.

A tipping point has not been reached yet, as there was no evidence that funding effected the number of names on the electoral register.  But going forward, it is important to ensure that electoral officials have the resources that they need to do the job, in the UK and elsewhere.

We therefore set out recommendations for reform in Britain, the principles of which may be useful in many other countries.

Going forward, budgets and spending should be routinely published to enable analysis and best practice to be identified.  The public availability of information will also help decision makers to be held to account for the resources that invest into well run elections and electoral registration. These lessons may have equal relevance in other countries.  Measures should also be considered that can make the electoral process more resource efficient.  This might include automatic electoral registration and an online tool allowing citizens to check and ‘own’ their registration record – rather than making individual queries to their electoral official.

Dr. Toby S. James is a Senior Lecturer at the University of East Anglia.  

The views in this blog are those of the author and not the Electoral Management Research Network.