The cost of democracy: The determinants of spending on the public administration of elections
| Author | Alistair Clark |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512118824787 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512118824787
International Political Science Review
2019, Vol. 40(3) 354 –369
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512118824787
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The cost of democracy: The
determinants of spending on the
public administration of elections
Alistair Clark
Newcastle University, UK
Abstract
Managing the electoral process requires considerable administrative and organizational capacity. Poor
performance can lead to voters being disenfranchised and the integrity and legitimacy of elections undermined.
Providing sufficient capacity to manage a national electoral process is expensive. Little research assesses how
much electoral democracy costs, and what drives those costs. These are crucial questions for democracies,
political science and public administration. Using rare comprehensive data from Britain, this article’s major
contribution is to begin identifying some of the drivers impacting on the cost of electoral administration in
advanced democracies. It presents an overview of influences on spending on electoral administration, before
developing a multivariate model utilizing socio-economic, organizational and administrative data on election
spending. It finds that costs in an important advanced democracy have been driven in a major national
election by the need to provide capacity, notably on the ground close to electors.
Keywords
Electoral administration, electoral integrity, elections
Introduction
Administering elections requires considerable organizational capacity. An electoral register must
be established, ballot papers printed, staff employed and trained, and polling stations set up. Such
capacity is expensive. Whether in democratizing countries or established democracies, little
research assesses how much electoral democracy costs, and what drives the cost of administering
national elections. These are important questions. The cost of politics is often criticized, without
much understanding of the public goods such spending pays for. Yet, without considerable public
spending on election administration, elections would either not be held, or electoral integrity would
be open to question. Election administration therefore serves a vital democratic function. While a
rare IFES/UNDP (2005) report did much to categorize and estimate election costs, it was less
Corresponding author:
Alistair Clark, Newcastle University, Politics Building, 40–42 Great North Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK.
Email: alistair.clark@ncl.ac.uk
824787IPS0010.1177/0192512118824787International Political Science ReviewClark
research-article2019
Special Issue Article
Clark 355
successful in examining how various costs were funded and capacity built on the ground. Others
suggest that even within the same state, election costs are seldom recorded consistently, thereby
limiting the potential for research (Montjoy, 2010).
The original contribution of this article is to explore the crucial relationship between spending
on election administration and the organizational activities and capacity which that spending con-
tributes to in an advanced democracy. Through an exploratory analysis, it aims to examine whether
election costs are rising in advanced democracies, and to assess what the drivers of such spending
are. It brings together rare but rigorous and extensive nationwide funding data from the UK
Electoral Commission and UK government on three different electoral contests including the big-
gest test for electoral administrators – national elections. Britain is typical of many advanced
democracies, notably the United States but also smaller democracies like Ireland, in that local
officials have the main responsibility for delivering elections. Consequently, there is variation in
standards of electoral administration and spending on such capacity. Britain is therefore an excel-
lent case for building knowledge about the relationship between spending and organizational
capacity in electoral administration. This evidence can be utilized to interrogate the relationship
between spending and administrative capacity elsewhere.
The first section briefly addresses the relationship between public service capacity, resources
and election administration. The second reviews the little known about spending on electoral
administration. The third part describes the data deployed, while the fourth provides an overview
of election spending before moving on to analyse election spending determinants through a public
sector cost analysis of spending on the 2014 European elections in Britain. The conclusion reflects
on the article’s significance for scholarship on electoral administration and integrity.
Capacity, resources and electoral administration
Public service capacity is normally defined in terms of the ability of bureaucracies to deliver their
services. The question of resources is regularly highlighted as an important factor in doing so
(Andrews and Boyne, 2010; Andrews et al., 2006; Christensen and Gazley, 2008).
Considerable organizational capacity is necessary to deliver elections (Alvarez and Hall, 2006;
Montjoy, 2008). Pre-election, an electoral register must be compiled, poll workers recruited, voting
equipment purchased and tested, ballot papers printed and polling station locations organized.
During the campaign, if advance voting is permitted, this must be administered. On polling day, the
election has to be run, staff turn up for work and be supervised, polling stations and ballot boxes
secured and the count begun. Post-election, results need to be audited, challenges administered and
lessons learned before the whole process begins again.
Most of these tasks, all vital to the smooth operation of elections, are periodic in nature. Electoral
processes are run to short timescales, with the majority of staff being non-specialists recruited and
trained only for the short-term conduct of the election (Clark and James, 2017a). Consequently,
administrative efficiency can be prone to errors and mistakes, something which Birch (2011: 14
and 26) labels ‘mispractice’ and others consider ‘malpractice’ (Vickery and Shein, 2012).
‘Mispractice’ therefore equates to administrative inefficiencies, whereas ‘malpractice’ is defined as
the ‘manipulation of electoral processes and outcomes so as to substitute personal or partisan ben-
efit for the public interest’ (Birch, 2011: 14 and 26). Difficulties can lead to perceptions of the
electoral process being not uniform, and at worst, threatening the entire credibility or integrity of
the process. Widespread scepticism and distrust about democratic processes means that such dif-
ficulties have the potential to further undermine confidence in political systems. Having the capac-
ity to ensure the effective administration of the electoral process is crucial to maintain public
confidence (Garnett, this volume).
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