Evaluating electoral management body capacity
| Author | Holly Ann Garnett |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119832924 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512119832924
International Political Science Review
2019, Vol. 40(3) 335 –353
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512119832924
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Evaluating electoral
management body capacity
Holly Ann Garnett
Royal Military College of Canada, Canada
Abstract
Electoral management bodies (EMBs) perform many functions crucial to promoting electoral integrity,
from registering voters to resolving post-election disputes. The capacity of an EMB to perform its tasks,
however, is difficult to measure in cross-national perspective. Data on resources and personnel provide only
a partial picture of EMB capacity and expert surveys are limited in their comparability. This article presents
a new proxy for measuring EMB capacity. It employs a content analysis of EMB websites in 99 countries to
measure the presence of indicators of their major functions. It assesses the measurement validity of this
new measure of capacity and conducts a small-scale test to determine whether EMBs that score highly do
actively communicate with their citizens. An application of this new measure of EMB capacity demonstrates
its importance in predicting overall electoral integrity, indicating its importance for future scholarly and
policy research.
Keywords
Elections, electoral integrity, election management, capacity, e-governance
Introduction
Electoral management bodies (EMBs) perform many crucial tasks throughout the electoral cycle:
from pre-election activities such as boundary delineation and voter registration, through election-
day administration of voting procedures and the counting of ballots, to post-election reporting and
auditing. However, the design and conduct of EMBs around the world vary greatly. In recent years,
variations in the formal structure of EMBs have received increasing scholarly attention, focusing
on issues such as independence (Hartlyn et al., 2008; van Aaken, 2009; van Ham and Lindberg,
2015) and centralization (James, 2016).
However, the capacity of EMBs, or their ability to perform their functions, has received consider-
ably less study. The lack of study of EMB capacity is largely due to a lack of comparative cross-
national data. It is difficult to find a way to measure EMB capacity across countries, and thus scholars
Corresponding author:
Holly Ann Garnett, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, PO Box 17000, Station Forces
Kingston, Ontario, K7K 7B4, Canada.
Email: holly-ann.garnett@rmc-cmr.ca
832924IPS0010.1177/0192512119832924International Political Science ReviewGarnett
research-article2019
Special Issue Article
336 International Political Science Review 40(3)
have shied away from its study. However, EMB capacity is likely to be a crucial predictor of overall
electoral integrity. EMBs are involved in all aspects of running elections, and their ability to manage
elections and perform key tasks such as identifying voters and counting the ballots is crucial.
This article therefore considers a variety of ways of measuring EMB capacity. It first examines
the resources, including budgets and staff, at an EMB’s disposal, and secondly explores expert
perceptions of EMB capacity. However, these methods of comparing an EMB’s capacity have
substantial disadvantages, including data incompleteness, lack of comparability and precision, and
a reliance on perceptions or judgements.
Thus, this article contributes a new proxy for EMB capacity in the form of a website content analysis.
Data points were collected through a content analysis of EMB websites in 99 countries that held national
elections between mid-2012 and 2014 and transformed into a scale of EMB capacity using Mokken
scaling analysis. This article assesses the measurement validity of this new method of evaluating EMB
capacity, first through a small-scale test of email responsiveness to demonstrate that EMB websites are
not simply static facades, and second by testing convergent validity, by comparing the scores with
expert perceptions of EMB capacity and performance, and overall government effectiveness.
Finally, this article uses this new measure of EMB capacity to demonstrate that capacity is key
to understanding variations in overall electoral integrity between countries. This article therefore
contributes to our comparative understanding of EMBs themselves and presents a new avenue for
research into the capacity of EMBs to perform the tasks that are crucial to electoral integrity.
EMB capacity
Following the introduction to this special issue, EMBs are defined as the variety of organizations that
are involved in running elections. The capacity of electoral management bodies refers to their ability to
perform functions and achieve their goals. International organizations often employ the term capacity
for the purposes of international assistance programmes. The United Nations Development Programme,
for example, defines capacity as ‘the ability of individuals, institutions and societies to perform func-
tions, solve problems, and set and achieve objectives in a sustainable manner’ (2009). This definition
suggests that capacity refers to overarching abilities of an organization to achieve its goals.
Scholars of public administration likewise suggest that capacity refers to specific abilities or
skills that may be mobilized (Christensen and Gazley, 2008). In an article on non-profit manage-
ment, for example, Eisinger defines capacity as ‘a set of attributes that help or enable an organiza-
tion to fulfill its missions’ (2002: 117). This is particularly useful in terms of defining EMB
capacity, since these overarching attributes or abilities may be mobilized to perform key electoral
functions throughout the electoral cycle, regardless of what specific tasks an EMB may face.
It is important to clarify that capacity is distinct from the other ways EMBs are compared,
against attributes such as impartiality or autonomy. For example, an EMB can be highly impartial
and its actions not influenced by the incumbent government, yet still lack the capacity to register
voters, set up enough polling stations, and accurately tabulate the results. This article seeks to care-
fully distinguish capacity from these other characteristics of EMBs.
Resources
One way to consider whether an EMB has the ability to perform its functions is to examine whether
it has adequate resources to do so. Elections carry a high price tag, including the salaries and ben-
efits of EMB personnel, both permanent and temporary, rent for office space and polling locations,
the purchasing of voting materials, including voting machines or printed ballots, and various non-
material goods such as advertisements and public outreach campaigns. A report from the early
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