Independence in Electoral Management: Electoral Processes Primer 1

Elections are the cornerstone of democratic political processes, serving as a mechanism for political parties or candidates to compete for public office under equal conditions before the electorate. For an election to be credible, the competition must be fair, requiring impartial management of the process. As described in International IDEA’s Handbook on Electoral Management Design (Catt et al. 2014), electoral management bodies (EMBs) are the state institution or institutions established and mandated to organize or, in some instances, supervise the essential (or core) elements of this process. This Primer focuses on the establishment of EMBs as institutions normatively, structurally and functionally independent from government. It examines the benefits and limitations of the legal and institutional framework, governance structure, remit, autonomy over their resources, and contextual approaches that facilitate their functional independence, applicable to different legal and political contexts. The Primer discusses EMB independence and EMB relations with all stakeholders engaged in an electoral process at the national level.

Electoral Processes: Navigating and Emerging from Crisis (Global State of Democracy Thematic Paper 2021)

Elections that take place regularly and provide for the orderly transition of power from one elected government to another are the cornerstone of democratic governance and political stability. During 2020–2021, the Covid-19 pandemic profoundly affected the conduct and integrity of elections worldwide. This paper notes a decline in clean elections across both democratic and non-democratic (hybrid and authoritarian) regimes that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. At the same time, there are important cases of electoral resilience displayed by democratic institutions and civil society. The paper offers policy recommendations for national governments, parliaments, electoral management bodies and international development organizations, and makes forward-looking conclusions.

Institutions for Protecting Constitutional Democracy: An Analytic Framework, with Special Reference to Electoral Management Bodies

Constitutional theory dating to Montesquieu identified three branches of government, each with a specific function: the legislature enacted general rules, the executive enforced the rules, and the judiciary resolved disputes about the rules’ meaning and application. Every government had to have these branches in some form; that is, the branches were necessary elements in a governance structure. In addition, the branches were exhaustive: that is, taken together they did everything a government could do.

Dynamics of Simultaneous Local Elections in 2020 During Covid-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to ignore the possibility of conflict in the Simultaneous Regional Head Elections; in fact, it tends to grow. Fundamentally, conflicts arise as a result of lack of planning and implementation of Electoral Management Bodies, confusing regulations, overlapping responsibilities and multiple interpretations of laws, and inability to deal with technical electoral issues. This study aims to examine the dynamics of holding the 2020 Simultaneous Regional Head Elections in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study employs a qualitative design with a descriptive approach. Data collection was carried out using literature review techniques from several related journal sources. According to the results of the study with the Concept of Conflict Resolution, the potential conflicts that emerged in the 2020 simultaneous regional elections, including the existence of money politics disguised as assistance for overcoming COVID-19, low voter participation due to public fear of the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, and weak technical elections management which resulted in the need for re-voting in several regions in Indonesia. Therefore, it can be conluded that Conflict resolution to eliminate money politics culture can be done by conducting political education which must be started from political parties. Meanwhile, to minimize re-voting, Electoral Management Bodies must prepare overall technical management well from planning, organizing, implementing to evaluating the entire process of organizing the election.

Risk Management in Elections: A Guide for Electoral Management Bodies

When electoral risks are not understood and addressed, they can undermine the credibility of the process and the results it yields. Electoral management bodies (EMBs) encounter numerous risks across all phases of the electoral cycle. They operate in environments that are increasingly complex and volatile and where factors such as technology, demographics, insecurity, inaccurate or incomplete information and natural calamities, create increasing uncertainty. The experiences of EMBs show that when formal risk management processes are successfully implemented, the benefits are profound. Greater risk awareness helps organizations to focus their resources on where they are most needed, thus achieving cost-effectiveness. Over the last decade it has been observed that EMBs are increasingly moving from informal to formal risk management processes. The purpose of this Guide is to lay out a set of practical steps for EMBs on how to establish or advance their risk management framework. The Guide’s chapters reflect the breadth of key considerations in the implementation process and offer basic resources to assist in the process.

Special Voting Arrangements: Between the Convenience of Voting and the Integrity of Elections

Forms of special voting arrangements (SVAs) conventionally include early, postal, online, proxy voting and use of mobile ballot boxes. Some of these SVAs involve voting within supervised voting stations and some enable voting without/outside polling stations. Over the past years, a growing number of countries across the globe, and in Europe, have utilised alternatives, with early, postal and proxy voting becoming more common. In the past months, the COVID-19 pandemic has led many governments and electoral management bodies to increasingly consider adopting new or scaling up these SVAs to avoid crowded voting on an election day. For in-person voting, examples of elections held in recent weeks in countries such as South Korea offer useful insights on what measures can be adopted to mitigate risks of disease contagion while voters assemble to cast their ballots at polling stations. This lecture and paper by Therese Pearce Laanela, Head of Electoral Processes of International IDEA, discusses the tension between providing convenience for voters by offering different ways of casting their votes and the need to ensure the elections are held with integrity.

Election commissions and non-democratic outcomes: Thailand’s contentious 2019 election

Responding to a recent call for more in-depth qualitative studies of electoral management bodies (EMBs), this article examines formally independent EMBs by using the example of the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) and the role it played in the recent 2019 election. We argue that in non-democratic regimes with high levels of political polarisation and entrenched elites, formal EMB independence may become part of the problem why elections fail. It creates opportunities for long-term EMB capture by actors who wield power outside of formal politics and are unaccountable to public interest. In case of the ECT, this has led to the decreasing electoral standards culminating in the highly contentious 2019 election where the ECT’s administrative efficiency and effectiveness of voting came secondary to pleasing the entrenched old Thai elite. Its conduct has reduced Thailand’s prospects for a peaceful transition to democratic rule as those who oppose the country’s old elite have increasingly limited opportunities to challenge it through formal means.

Lessons from Malawi’s Fresh Presidential Elections of 23 June 2020

On 3 February 2020, the High Court of Malawi sitting on constitutional matters nullified the presidential election that was held on 21 May 2019. That decision was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeal on 8 May 2020. Various reforms were ordered by the courts and legislated by Parliament, most notably a change in the electoral system, from a simple majoritarian, or first-past-the-post (FPTP), system to a two-round system where the winner must receive over 50 per cent of the votes. A fresh presidential election was held on 23 June 2020 under the supervision of a new commission, and Malawi made history in Africa on 27 June when the opposition candidate was announced victorious in the fresh presidential election. The repeat election was held in a largely peaceful environment, and the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) did not receive any complaints following the announcement of the result. Given the remarkable events that took place in Malawi, the Executive Committee of the Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC countries (ECF-SADC) recommended that the MEC should be given the opportunity to share its experience regarding the fresh presidential election of 23 June 2020 with other member commissions. The ECF-SADC in collaboration with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) organized a webinar on 31 August 2020 to strengthen peer review among electoral management bodies (EMBs) in the region of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The webinar provided a platform for peer-learning concerning both the conduct of the fresh presidential election in Malawi and emerging regional trends in electoral justice.