Calvin Benn of the Guyana Elections Commission recounts the depth and breadth of his experience in the administration and management of Guyana's national elections, particularly focusing on the successes of the 2006 election process.  In his capacity with the commission, Benn oversaw the registration of voters and administration of polling places, including the distribution of polling supplies, recruitment and training of poll workers, and vote counting and verification.  Benn shares some relatively straightforward approaches to resolving voting day challenges, including simulation exercises, acquainting poll workers and security forces with polling places, the training of political party polling "scrutineers," the shipment of polling supplies, and the procedure for vote counting.  The interview can be broken into two related but distinct parts: Benn's role as the administrator of the polling process and his related but separate responsibility overseeing a continuous registration process for national identification cards for purposes that include but are not limited to voting registration. 

Case Study:  Cooling Ethnic Conflict Over a Heated Election: Guyana, 2001-2006

Miguel de Brito reflects on how the 1994 election in Mozambique was administered.  He highlights the important roles of both the international community and the Comissão Nacional de Eleições (CNE, or National Election Commission).  He talks about the difficulties the CNE faced in building consensus and how the CNE’s first chairman managed to overcome those difficulties. He offers observations on how the immediate post-conflict environment in 1994 shaped the administration of the elections and what impact this legacy had on subsequent elections.  He also touches on the evolution of the Mozambican election dispute resolution mechanism.

Case Study:  Compromise and Trust-Building After Civil War: Elections Administration in Mozambique, 1994

Alex Paila discusses various aspects of national and local election management in Sierra Leone during 2007 and 2008. These areas include the recruitment, training, evaluation and monitoring of election staff; election security; voter registration, audits and curtailment of voter fraud; information dissemination, media relations and enfranchisement of marginalized groups; and financial and logistical constraints and concerns.  He also emphasizes cooperation with community-based civilian organizations as key for information dissemination and higher voter turnouts, and he stresses relations with international organizations to improve workers’ training and monitoring, and secure funding. Paila also speaks about the issues of districting and determining electoral timetables.  Finally, he reflects upon some of the challenges faced by Sierra Leone during the elections in 2007 and 2008, as well as possible hurdles that the country may face in the future.    

In this interview, Vincent Crabbe discusses his experience confronting the many challenges of ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections. One of the chief obstacles to transparent elections is the compilation of a reliable voter registry. For instance, in the absence of birth certificates and other forms of identification, he notes the difficulty of ascertaining whether a voter is of legal voting age. Other obstacles to compiling the lists include the fact that multiple individuals have the same name. Crabbe explains key reforms to Ghana’s elections process that he believes are transferrable to other countries, including see-through ballot boxes and counting ballots at polling stations to reduce the likelihood of tampering with while en route to counting centers. Finally, Crabbe sheds light on what he believes are the key attributes required for an electoral commissioner.   

Case Study:  Keeping the Peace in a Tense Election: Ghana, 2008

Shukri Ismail discusses the formation and work of Somaliland’s first national election commission. She explains the difficulties the commission faced organizing Somaliland’s first elections, which included a difficult voter registration process, setting the election timetable and dealing with weak and newly formed state institutions and untested election law. Ismail also discusses the difficulties with political party formation, hiring and training election staff and the potential for violence when the commission ultimately determined the presidential election had been won by 80 votes. She also touches on working with international consultants, the electoral commission’s relationship with the media, the role of the clan in Somaliland’s elections, the lessons learned from Somaliland’s first elections and the challenges still ahead.

Case Study:  Nurturing Democracy in the Horn of Africa: Somaliland's First Elections, 2002-2005

Albert Kofi Arhin discusses the biggest challenges of conducting elections in Ghana. He details the process of drawing up a timetable for the elections. He explains the issues surrounding elections funding and the steps Ghana is taking to make them more affordable. Arhin also discusses staff recruiting and training, elections monitoring, boundary delimitation, and voter registration. He then focuses on fraud prevention, both in the registration process and during the elections themselves, and security issues.  Arhin also touches on the Electoral Commission’s relationship with the media, discusses voter education, and offers advice for other countries conducting difficult elections.    

Case Study:  Keeping the Peace in a Tense Election: Ghana, 2008