Electoral Management

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In countries around the world, there have been major problems in the management of elections. Examples of failures of electoral management include:

  • Queues at polling stations leaving citizens unable to vote
  • Voting machinery causing a delayed count
  • Errors in the electoral rolls
  • Electoral officials not following processes
  • Insufficent staff being appointed to run polling stations

The study of electoral management has long been overlooked, but unfortunately problems such as these have forced policy makers to take running elections seriously. Elections are not just conducted in a day. They are multi-year events, involving planning across a whole electoral cycle.

What is electoral management?

Electoral management can be defined as the ‘organisations, networks, resources, micro anthropological working practices and instruments involved in implementing elections.

Comparative Electoral Management

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My new book on Comparative Electoral Management was published in 2020.  Find out more information here.

The volume sets out:

  • What is electoral management?
  • How electoral management can be measured?
  • Who is involved in running and managing elections?
  • What works in improving the quality of elections?

Recent research findings

A variety of research projects have focused on:

  • Surveying Electoral Management Bodies worldwide.  This is a collaborative project with some excellent international colleagues – research findings will follow.
  • Funding electoral services.  In a recent publication we set out how public sector austerity can affect the management of elections.
  • New challenges in electoral management. The twenty-first century has brought about many new challenges to emerge in many established democracies that make running elections more difficult for electoral administrators (see: this paper).
  • The impact of performance standards.  Introducing performance standards can improve the quality of electoral management (see: this paper)
  • Centralising electoral management.  Greater central control electoral management can lead to some unforeseen negative consequences (and yet also some positive ones) (see: this paper).
  • Individual electoral registration.  Implementing major changes, such as those to voter registration, can lead to many unintended consequences on other aspects of electoral management (see: this paper).
  • UK Poll Worker Survey 2015.  With Dr. Alistair Clark (University of Newcastle) which will involve the first ever survey of poll workers in the UK.  This is funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.
  • The quality of electoral management at the UK Brexit referendum.  In a recent report funded by the Electoral Commission, Alistair Clark and I assess the UK’s electoral machinery.

Policy Impact on Electoral Electoral Management

Researchers have a duty, I think, to try to encourage policy makers to use their research to improve how elections are run.  You can find out more about the policy impact that the research has had in this video, filmed by the ESRC, as part of their impact awards series:

Key Publications on Electoral Management:

Recent Consultancy / Policy Reports / Evidence

Recent Blog posts