Summary
Sufficient funding and resources should be provided for the conduct of the electoral process, free from interference from any other electoral stakeholders.
Election Parts
Issues
Criteria
Quotes
- [States should] ensure transparency of the electoral process, particularly in: 8.2.1. the organisation of elections: they should be organised by independent and impartial bodies, which should lead to the general introduction of central electoral commissions, ensuring that adequate resources are made available for the effective registration of voters and efficient organisation of the ballot.
- Ensure the availability of adequate logistics and resources for carrying out democratic elections.
- Whatever the particular characteristics of the respective national system for funding various election processes, the election administration should be provided, in a transparent manner, with funds from the state or municipal budget sufficient to meet its responsibilities. The independence of the election administration can be enhanced if it has its own public budget, at established levels, rather than allocated through an ad hoc budgetary process.
- For any EMB to be credible and effective, sufficient and timely funds must be made available to it...
- Indeed, the lack of adequate resources to run an election could severely hamper the goal of delivering free and fair election services.
- The availability of resources is an important consideration in any scheme for election administration.
- The way an electoral commission is funded may…affect its independent status. Where funds are provided through any special or block vote in the Ministry responsible for electoral matters, valuable time may have to be spent negotiating the budget with that Ministry, or the Ministry of Finance, as the case may be. It is believed that the budget for an electoral commission should be voted directly by Parliament.
- Government must adequately fund the EMB in order for it to deliver a credible and legitimate election.
- To further enhance the independence and impartiality of the Electoral Commission it should have its own budget directly voted for by Parliament and not gets its allocation form a Ministry or a Government Department.
- The election administration should be provided with a transparent, sufficient, and independent budget.
- The independence of the election administration body is further guaranteed by a transparent, sufficient and independent budget provided from government resources.
- The legal framework should require that all levels of electoral bodies be established in a timely manner before an election and be adequately funded. It is crucial that the legal framework contains provisions as to how funding for the ongoing operations of the EMB will be made available. Some of the major methods of funding election operations are: The budget is allocated to an EMB through a department of the government (though in many emerging democracies this arrangement has not worked very satisfactorily); The budget is directly voted by parliament without the intervention of a department, sometimes through the medium of a standing all-party parliamentary committee; A lump sum advance allocation, with some guiding principles, is provided for. Once the EMB has conducted the electoral operation and exhausted that amount, the necessary audited sums are approved by the legislature; The EMB has direct and uncontrolled access to the State treasury for funding elections and reports to parliament only after an election.
- Election administrators should be free from interference by government or parties, and should be provided with sufficient funds to allow them to fulfil their responsibilities.