The Public Funding of Election Administration: Evidence from a British General Election
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221148429 |
| Author | Alistair Clark |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221148429
Political Studies Review
2024, Vol. 22(2) 313 –329
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/14789299221148429
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The Public Funding of Election
Administration: Evidence from
a British General Election
Alistair Clark
Abstract
Administering elections is costly, requiring considerable resourcing. The extent to which election
administration is funded can reveal government priorities towards democratic rights and affects
every potential voter. Yet, little is known of this crucial aspect of public administration, in any
type of democracy. This research innovates by seeking to establish overall levels of variation
in public funding of election administration in a national general election, and by applying this
to the local level to investigate whether socio-economic, administrative or political factors are
more important as drivers of costs. The article deploys a unique dataset which integrates rare
government election administration budgeting data, with Census and political data to provide an
exploratory analysis from a British general election. It finds that key production costs of voting
infrastructure appear to drive funding. While socio-economic and political aspects have less of an
impact, levels of ethnic minority voters and regional effects also appear important determinants.
Keywords
election administration, public administration, election costs, elections, public funding
Accepted: 13 December 2022
Introduction
Elections cannot be delivered without significant investment in the infrastructure that
enables voters to go to the polls on election day. This is a logistically and administratively
complex exercise which potentially impacts every elector in a country. Delivering elec-
tions is commonly presented as being expensive to deliver, although little is known about
the costs involved in doing so (e.g. Montjoy, 2010). Importantly, the amount that govern-
ments are willing to budget for and spend on the public funding of elections can provide
a key test of their willingness to prioritise making those key democratic events accessible
for some electoral groups over others. In an era where a traditionally under-represented
class has been argued to have either been behind several electoral disruptions or led to
Politics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Corresponding author:
Alistair Clark, Politics, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.
Email: alistair.clark@ncl.ac.uk
1148429PSW0010.1177/14789299221148429Political Studies ReviewClark
research-article2023
Article
314Political Studies Review 22(2)
falling participation rates, understanding these potential drivers for election administra-
tion funding appears urgent (e.g. Goodhart, 2017; Inglehart and Norris, 2017).
If little is known about spending on election administration, even less is known about
the funding formulas governments use to allocate public funding for elections.
Consequently, when extensive data become available on funding such an essential demo-
cratic function, political scientists concerned with the conduct of elections have an obli-
gation to analyse these data, to make sure no groups or constituencies are disadvantaged
and to establish the key drivers of election funding. This is the primary aim of this article.
It innovates by integrating rare and rigorous official data on the public funding of the
2015 British general election, with census and other socio-economic and political varia-
bles to interrogate the distribution of spending across British parliamentary constituen-
cies. The article’s focus is two-fold. The first aim is to establish variation in how much is
budgeted for election delivery in a national general election. The second and more impor-
tant aim from the viewpoint of electoral equity is to examine this at the level closest to the
voter, that of the local constituency. In particular, the unique dataset utilised in this article
permits the relationship between socio-economic, political and electoral administrative
drivers of costs to be explored at this local level, to determine, which, if any of these
aspects drive costs more than the others. It adds the notion of traditionally under-repre-
sented voters as a potentially important locus of spending on elections, suggesting that
there ought to be a positive relationship between such groups and election funding if
accessibility is something that a government is prioritising in its allocation of funding.
The article begins with an overview of election administration funding. It outlines
findings in the scarce literature on election administrative funding, before, in the next
section, going on to develop some general expectations. The third section outlines the
data and methods used, before the fourth and fifth sections present descriptive and multi-
variate analyses. Ethnic minority voters do not seem to be disadvantaged by election
administration funding, while other categories of traditionally unrepresented voters
appear neither advantaged nor disadvantaged. Funding appears driven by practical pro-
duction costs, while evidence exists of regional and, potentially, partisan effects. The
article concludes with the argument that funding delivery of elections should be seen as
investment in a vital public service.
Funding Election Administration
Administering elections is complex. The electoral cycle contains three main periods: pre-
election, the electoral period and the post-election period, although some analysts have
identified a larger number of processes (e.g. Elklit and Reynolds, 2005). Pre-election
involves registering eligible citizens, making any necessary changes to electoral law,
planning logistics such as polling places, and recruiting and training temporary polling
staff. The electoral period involves candidate nominations, organising ballot papers and
any early voting periods or absentee voting, and running the polling day operation and
count. Post-election, the process is reviewed and lessons learned, before recommencing
the whole cycle for the next election. This is a high-pressure environment; results have to
be delivered accurately, quickly and be seen to be legitimate. Most of these tasks are
periodic in nature and typically run to short timescales.
Adequate resourcing and financing of any aspect of public administration is crucial to
the delivery of public services and policy implementation (Cairney, 2012: 35). Elections
are no exception (Clark, 2019; James, 2020). The extent to which they are funded reflects
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