state responsible for deriving voter lists from the civil register, an approach
known as passive voter registration. Another passive registration approach
tasks the EMB or other competent body with compiling voter registers, either
by sending official enumerators from house to house to register voters or by
extrapolating eligible voter data from the civil registry. Some frameworks may
also split the responsibility between the state and citizens. In all cases, however,
the final responsibility for the voter register lies with a local or central state
authority or EMB, which must ensure that voter registers are maintained in
an accurate, current, complete, transparent and secure manner, in full respect
of the Freedom from Discrimination and Equality under the Law.
Regardless of the approach chosen, the voter registration process aims to
facilitate the registration of eligible voters while safeguarding against the
registration of ineligible persons. Hence, the legal framework for elections is
called on to define:
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types of citizenship and proof of age documentation;
types of residency documentation;
methods of voter registration;
processes for dealing with objections and appeals;
voter identification; and
documentation required by voters.
All of the above must be clearly stated in the law, objectively determinable
and not be subject to arbitrary decision. The obligations of Transparency and
the Right to Information require that voter registers are public documents
that can be monitored and made available for inspection at no cost to the
requester. In order to guarantee respect for the underlying treaty obligations,
the legal framework ideally specifies who may access voter registers, how the
inspection will take place and when voter registers are available for public
inspection. Transparency and accuracy of the process also require the law
to specify who is permitted to request registration changes, additions and
deletions. The framework must also detail the procedure for making such
requests and the time period during which such requests may be made.
Requests for changes, additions and deletions in voter registers should be cut
off by a minimum time period before an election in order to finalize and close
registers. Persons may be entitled to make requests that relate to other people
in addition to themselves. When a person is permitted to make a request that
affects another person, the other person must be notified of the request and
be permitted to respond to the request.
Changes, additions and deletions require regulation to ensure that they are
only made upon the presentation of specific documentation and in accordance
with the procedure identified in the legislation. Before finalizing voter
registers, all registered political parties can be given notice of (and provided
180 International IDEA