Summary
Methods to facilitate voting may include postal voting.
Obligations
Criteria
Quotes
- The Committee recommends that States parties: (e) Ensure the registration and voting of women voters, such as by allowing postal balloting, where appropriate, and removing all barriers, including by ensuring an adequate and accessible number of polling stations.
- [States should foster citizen participation in the electoral process by]enabling all citizens to exercise their right to vote through proxy voting, postal voting or e-voting, on the condition that the secrecy and the security of the vote are guaranteed.
- Postal voting…may be available to a single individual, such as a person who is abroad on business, or for an entire community, such as persons who are displaced due to the outbreak of war.
- Postal voting and proxy voting are permitted in countries throughout the western world, but the pattern varies considerably. Postal voting, for instance, may be widespread in one country and prohibited in another owing to the danger of fraud. It should be allowed only if the postal service is secure – in other words, safe from intentional interference – and reliable, in the sense that it functions properly. Proxy voting is permissible only if subject to very strict rules, again in order to prevent fraud; the number of proxies held by any one elector must be limited.
- Providing mobile ballot boxes and absentee voting broadens the participation of the electorate. However, these are provisions that can be open to abuse.
- The legal framework for elections may provide for other methods of voting, such as voting by mail or mobile voting.
- Where systems of proxy or postal voting are used, and where sick people are allowed to vote at home or in hospital, ensuring that these arrangements can withstand attempts at fraud or coercion and do not offend the secrecy of the ballot.
- [V]oters should always have the possibility of voting in a polling station. Other means of voting are acceptable under the following conditions: iii. postal voting should be allowed only where the postal service is safe and reliable; the right to vote using postal votes may be confined to people who are in hospital or imprisoned or to persons with reduced mobility or to electors residing abroad; fraud and intimidation must not be possible.
- [P]ostal voting should be allowed only where the postal service is safe and reliable; the right to vote using postal votes may be confined to people who are in hospital or imprisoned or to persons with reduced mobility or to electors residing abroad; fraud and intimidation must not be possible;
- Special voting procedures may include the use of mobile ballot boxes intended for the sick and elderly, voting in hospitals and prisons, early voting, voting by post, voting in embassies, and special provisions for military voting.
- Although it is not possible for the legal framework to prevent violations of the principle of secrecy of the vote in postal voting, it is possible to provide for legal sanctions for violation of the secrecy requirement and to include other provisions to reduce the opportunity to undermine the integrity of the election through fraudulent postal voting.
- Voting procedures must be readily understandable by citizens; ii. voters should always have the possibility of voting in a polling station. Other means of voting are acceptable under the following conditions: iii. postal voting should be allowed only where the postal service is safe and reliable; the right to vote using postal votes may be confined to people who are in hospital or imprisoned or to persons with reduced mobility or to electors residing abroad; fraud and intimidation must not be possible.