What Is Electoral Reform?
Electoral reform is a broad term that covers, among other things, improving the responsiveness of electoral processes to public desires and expectations. However, not all electoral change can be considered electoral reform. Electoral change can only be referred to as reform if its primary goal is to improve electoral processes, for example, through fostering enhanced impartiality, inclusiveness, transparency, integrity or accuracy. However, this distinction is not always clear in practice: some changes (e.g. US proposals to require voters to produce identity documents at polling stations) may be characterized as desirable or even necessary ‘reforms’ by their proponents, but as improper ‘manipulation’ by their opponents. Random and/or frequent electoral change, while it may be reformist, can also be confusing to voters, and thus defeat its purpose. Frequent change may also negatively affect the sustainability of an EMB’s operations.
Purported electoral reforms have also often had unanticipated consequences, either in the short or long terms, which have wholly or partially negated their anticipated benefits. Such a situation may arise due to poor design or implementation, or because the reforms give rise to opportunities for parties or candidates to manipulate the system to their advantage.
Electoral reform often only catches the public eye when it involves changes to representational arrangements, such as electoral systems, but it is a much broader concept than this. There are three distinct areas of electoral reform; an EMB and its stakeholders may play different roles in each.
- Legal: involving the amendment of the constitution, electoral law, and/ or related rules and regulations to enhance the integrity, relevance and adequacy of the legal framework within which the EMB delivers its services. This may include institutional reform of the EMB itself.
- Administrative: the introduction within an EMB of new strategies, structures, policies, procedures and technical innovations to enable it to implement its legal responsibilities and deliver its services more efficiently, effectively and sustainably. These could include policies and practices on issues such as procurement, financial integrity or employment (such as gender balance in the recruitment of EMB staff ); making informed voting accessible to groups such as women, those living in remote areas and the physically impaired; or introducing new technology for services such as voting, voter registration or electoral logistics.
- Political: changes that take place in the political environment within which an EMB operates, such as giving it more autonomy or creating a more effective and transparent framework for its funding and accountability.
The most dramatic examples of reform involve a previously non-democratic country introducing democratic electoral processes (e.g. Indonesia’s transition to open, multiparty electoral democracy in 1998–99). In such situations, reform in all three areas (legal, administrative and political) tends to take place at the same time, often under tight time constraints, and with no single player driving, and taking a holistic view of, the overall reform process.
Since the mid-1980s, there have been substantial structural and procedural changes in the way elections are conducted around the world, such as the growing numbers of independent and permanent EMBs and the increasing use of new technologies to deliver electoral services. Electoral reform has often been part of a package of general democratization initiatives. However, many countries that previously enjoyed general satisfaction with their long-standing framework and style of electoral administration have also undertaken substantial reforms. Examples include the introduction of an independent EMB and significantly wider access to voting in Australia in 1984; the introduction of a new independent body with electoral functions, and a radically different electoral system, in New Zealand in 1993 (followed by a further consolidation and enhancement of the EMB’s functions, completed in 2012); changes in Sweden in 2001 to create a more independent electoral administration; and the establishment of an independent electoral commission in Tonga in 2010.
The internationalization of electoral frameworks and administration continues to place countries under pressure to introduce electoral reform measures. The relatively recent development of generally acknowledged principles for free, fair and credible elections, and of global and regional obligations for electoral administration, have created yardsticks by which each country’s electoral processes and administration can be assessed.
More problematically, countries are sometimes encouraged or even pressured to introduce processes, such as a civil register, which are not rooted in basic principles of freedom and fairness, but rather in the preferences of external advisers or election observers.
Reforms to electoral processes may be triggered by a failure to deliver acceptable elections or by conflict resulting from disputed elections. Where countries are dependent on international donor contributions, funds may be linked to the implementation of electoral reforms, as in Liberia. Even where there is no such explicit linkage, the injection of donor funds may tend to make arguments for electoral reform more compelling. Financial constraints requiring electoral resources to be used more sustainably and effectively have had a significant bearing on administrative electoral reforms.
The increasingly widespread and expert independent and political party observation of elections has produced many well-documented assessments of electoral performance and recommended reforms — for example, in connection with Nigeria’s post-2003 elections and with numerous elections observed by ANFREL. Civil society and the media have become more aware of electoral rights and related international obligations. International observation and technical assistance to elections in emerging democracies can also have an effect in the mature democracies.
While governments have initiated many electoral reforms, at times in response to societal or external pressures, EMBs themselves have often been powerful motivators of such changes. More widespread public accountability and transparency of EMBs — a significant reform in itself — has had a multiplier effect on further electoral reform. Materials supporting electoral reforms have emerged from EMBs’ increasing use of election audits and the advocacy activities of CSOs and other stakeholders.
