The effectiveness of training for voting station officials can be considerably influenced by the delivery style and presentation methods used.
Choosing the right delivery style or mix of delivery styles is a matter of carefully assessing the following factors:
• the skills which training aims to develop;
• the subject matter to be absorbed;
• the existing skills of the individuals who are to be trained;
• the trainees' cultural familiarity with potential delivery styles;
• The numbers in the groups to be trained.
As with the introduction of any system, it is prudent to test delivery style and content combinations of new training programs on a sample of trainees, and make adjustments after evaluating the trial's success, before implementing full-scale training. While an added expense, it can prevent failure and the need for significant retraining later.
Potential Presentation Methods
Different training delivery styles may be required for senior polling officials, such as voting station managers, than for junior staff.
In junior staff the aim is to develop competencies in a limited range of tasks--such as, issuing voting material, checking voter identity, securing ballot boxes, and assisting voters with information on how to vote--that are based on demonstrable standard procedures that can be easily practised and assessed.
Officials with supervisory and management roles in voting stations need a broader range of skills--some procedural, some for judgment and management--for which effective training would vary the delivery style mix with a greater orientation towards group discussion, problem-solving, and analytical work.
Basic Presentation Styles
Basic styles may be divided into two main categories:
• non-participative, where training participants are fed information relevant to their tasks by the trainer, make notes, and perhaps have some time to ask questions;
• Participative, using formats through which interaction between the group and the trainer, amongst the group, and the practice of skills are integral parts of the training.
The typical non-participative styles include:
• lectures;
• demonstrations by experts;
• watching and listening to video and audio training aids;
• Revision tests and assignments.
Typical participative styles include:
• discussion groups, either of the training group as a whole or using smaller sub-groups, with discussions and reporting back of conclusions guided by the trainer;
• games used to stimulate thinking about task parameters and conduct;
• simulations of voting station activity involving role play by group members and trainer-guided comments by the group;
• exercises in undertaking required tasks;
• competitions, involving individual or group knowledge and demonstrations of skills learned.
Determining Appropriate Delivery Styles
In determining which are the appropriate styles to use for imparting particular knowledge and skills, there are some general guiding principles that should be considered. Reliance on non-participative methods, particularly lecture-style presentations, and training aids (see Training Environment) is not the most effective means for developing task competency.
However, these styles are useful to introduce and reinforce the legislative and procedural framework, demonstrate and describe skills to be learned, and summarise expected learning.
Participative methods stimulate task competency and learning, provide practice for the participants in the tasks they will have to undertake, and assist in building team cooperation amongst participants. If carefully designed and controlled they can allow continuous assessment of knowledge and support the evaluation of training progress (see Timing of Training and Evaluation of Recruitment and Training).
Simulations and Role Play
For polling staff, simulations of their voting day duties, in an area set up to resemble a voting station with real materials and rotating role playing amongst the group (playing a variety of officials and voters), is a highly effective, if not essential, part of their training. Suitable subjects for simulations would include:
• set-up of voting station equipment and materials, including sealing of ballot boxes (or initialisation procedures for voting machines or computers), distribution and checking of voting materials, signage and voter information display;
• checking voter identity and eligibility;
• issuing voting materials;
• handling of party/candidate representatives and independent observers, complaints and problem situations;
• crowd control and voter service;
• voting material reconciliations;
• monitoring of ballot boxes and voting compartment areas;
• collecting, sorting, and packaging of materials at close of voting and preparations made for the ballot count.
Where staff are also being trained for the ballot count, additional simulation activities could include:
• checking in of materials (if at separate counting centres) and reconciliation of ballots;
• determination of validity of and preference marks on ballots;
• sorting, tallying, and aggregating votes;
• interventions by party/candidate representatives and independent observers;
• final reconciliations and packaging of materials.
Other forms of participative training--large or small group discussions, quizzes, or competitions--can be used to reinforce and extend the learning from simulations or act as learning stimulants on their own.
Training Skills Needed for Participative Methods
The drawback with participative methods is that they will generally require a higher level of trainer skill and confidence. It is a lot easier to stand and lecture a group, and demonstrate personally or with audio-visual aids, than it is to effectively lead group discussions, exercises, and simulations. For that reason, in cascade systems (see Training Methodology), lower level and generally inexperienced training presenters should be selected with care and must have the opportunity to practise participative training skills during their training sessions, if they are to use participative training methods for training other voting station officials.
Session Lengths
There is no ideal length of training session. Optimal length will basically be determined by:
• complexity of the subject matter to be addressed;
• base skills and prior experience of the participants;
• information retention capacities of the trainees.
However, sessions of longer than five to six hours in a single day will tax participants' and trainers' energies and attention spans, and possibly lead to reduced effectiveness.
Especially for senior polling officials, multi-day training may be necessary to cover both management and procedural issues. Where relatively experienced polling staff are being trained, procedural training may be completed in a half day, whereas a full day may be required for less experienced staff.
Where voting station officials or other staff are also being trained as trainers, it would be unlikely that sufficient effective training skills would be learned in less than two days, in addition to their procedural and technical voting operations training.
Cost is a significant deterrent to providing thorough training. However, the ultimate costs of even a very few voting stations where there are significant procedural or management irregularities can be significantly greater than any apparent savings made in training.
Training Session Organisation
Organisation and effectiveness of training sessions is considerably enhanced if the session is broken down into specific planned modules. Free-form sessions can too easily fail to cover the subject matter or group activities required and thus fail to achieve the session objectives.
Adequate rest breaks are important for maintaining participants' attention. These are not only scheduled rest, snack, or meal breaks, but depend on the trainer closely watching the responsiveness of the group and allowing brief rest or stretch breaks (which may include physical or mental focusing exercises) between or during modules, particularly where participants have been seated for an extended period of time.
Where sessions are being conducted at night, the needs, energy, and attention limits of those participants who have been working on other tasks during the day need to be considered in structuring the session content and determining its length. For full-day sessions, stimulating activities need to be programmed for the post-meal and late afternoon "dozing" periods.
Subject Module Organisation
Training sessions can also be better controlled if broken down into modules, with each module representing a specific block of learning to be achieved by the participants.
Organisation of sessions in modular fashion assists trainers by maintaining a structure on time usage and provides more easily identifiable specific training and learning objectives against which trainee's achievements and the trainer's performance can be evaluated.
Each module should be supported by a lesson plan. These lesson plans should provide a detailed guide to the trainer in presenting each module in regard the following:
• information content;
• presentation methods
• training aids;
• timing structure;
• information review activities.
The number of modules into which a session is divided and the length of each module will depend on such factors as:
• the extent of the subject matter (for detailed discussion of session content see Training Session Content);
• the presentation style or styles to be used (e.g., simulations will take longer than lectures and review);
• the attention spans and information absorption capacities of the trainees.
Attention spans may vary in different environments (for example, there may be significantly diminished attention spans in post-conflict election environments where the population has been traumatised by conflict).
As a general rule, modules that are more than sixty minutes long will tax the energy, absorption and attention of participants.
Within each module, thought needs to be given to aspects of the module being presented in different ways. Normal effective attention spans are at maximum twenty minutes; for passive activity, such as watching a video demonstration, they can be very much shorter.
Within longer modules, a change of presentation style or activity should occur at least at twenty minute intervals to maintain fully effective attention. Such changes may be as simple as the movement from a group discussion activity to presentation of group conclusions, from a demonstration to a question period on the activity demonstrated, or from a lecture style description of an activity to its simulation.
During each module there must be the opportunity for questioning. By the conclusion of each module there must have been the opportunity for the trainer to assess each trainee's skill competency in the relevant subject. This could be done by means of a short assignment, participation in a demonstration, simulation, or group discussion or other appropriate means.
Special Considerations for Training Ballot Counting Officials
Where count officials are the same staff as in voting stations, they are likely to have already worked a busy ten to fifteen hours already, be fatigued and liable to errors in judgment, before they commence their counting duties.
Effective training for these officials has to be oriented towards instilling automatic, practised responses through intense simulations of ballot sorting, counting, handling challenges to votes, and determining ballot validity.
