Overview
Education in support of the electoral process has become known as 'voter education' where the primary target is the voter. There are a number of other areas of education required if an election is to be successful, but these may variously be conducted by political parties and election administration officials. Voter education, on the other hand, is considered to be a separate and discreet function. It is usually identified as a function of the electoral authority and is occasionally
subcontracted by them to private companies and civil society organisations. It is also fostered by public interest organizations independent of any mandate by the election authority.
What is Voter Education?
At its core, voter education is an enterprise designed to ensure that voters are ready, willing, and able to participate in electoral politics. It has been assumed that this entails election literacy and confidence that the electoral process is appropriate and efficacious in selecting governments and promoting policies that will benefit the individual voter.
Is Voter Education Sufficient for Democracy?
As indicated elsewhere in this topic area, voter education is essential to ensuring that voters can effectively exercise their voting rights and express their political will through the electoral process. If voters are not prepared or motivated to participate in the electoral process, then questions may begin to arise about the legitimacy, representativeness, and responsiveness of elected leaders and institutions. At the same time, voter education is a very focused undertaking. It is targeted at eligible voters and addresses specific electoral events as well as the general electoral process. While voter education is a necessary component of the democractic electoral process, it is not sufficient for democracy.
Voter education needs to be supplemented by on-going civic education efforts in order to achieve the democratic participation and culture that flows from and is, in fact, the rationale for periodic elections. Civic education employs a broader perspective than voter education. It is concerned with citizens, rather than voters, and emphasizes the relationship between active citizenship and democratic society. It is understood that citizens must engage the political process rountinely, not just at the time of elections (for more on this see Civic Education).
Certainly, participation in elections and the status of 'voter' have a special weight in transitional countries holding founding elections and where the right to vote has been obtained through social struggle. As the democratic world moves toward a universal franchise, however, voting is viewed as one of the many ways in which citizens participate in and support democracy.
International Comparisons
The scope of voter education efforts required in any given country will depend upon a variety of factors. Does the country have a long history of democratic elections, or is this a founding or transitional election? Is voter registration mandatory or voluntary? Who is responsible for voter registration? Has the franchise been extended to include new groups of voters? Have their been changes to the system of representation or the voting process? Do the electoral process and political institutions enjoy the confidence of the electorate? Is the election campaign open and competitive? Have voter education efforts been undertaken in the past? Is there an on-going civic education effort? The answers to all of these questions and more will impact the nature and reach of the voter education programme.
Messages and Methods
Helping citizens understand and participate in elections--other than as a contestant or supporter of a contestant (an important and under exploited form of education)--requires concentration on a few key concerns. These seem to have somewhat universal significance, although each election may have its own special features. These concerns are discussed in
Standard Voter Education Messages.
Educators will also have methodological considerations and these are addressed in Potential Programme Elements. Various programme elements may be appropriate depending on the resources available and the objectives that have been set by the education organisation or, alternatively, by the organisation sponsoring the programme. The methodological variations available demonstrate that voter
education falls between the two concepts 'voter information' and 'civic education'.
Whose Responsibility?
While voter information is certainly the responsibility of the election authority, voter education can easily be viewed as the responsibility of both of the election authority and civil society. A variety of other government agencies may also have some role in informing and educating citizens. The mandate of the election authority or other government agencies may be determined through law, while civil society organizations may have, as part of their mission, a commitment to voter education and political participation.
That there is a need to educate people to take part in elections is not at issue. Whether these people are children or adults, there are many educational needs that relate to the conduct of elections. Amongst these are the patently nonpartisan ones discussed in Standard Voter Education Messages. But there are also the needs related to active participation in competitive politics. One educational activity involves the use of mock or parallel elections. In Chile, for example, children accompany their parents to the polls on Election Day and actually cast ballots in a parallel election. In other cases, mock election activities may either be narrowly focused on voting behavior or incorporate the entire electoral campaign. Having children run for election or campaign for others provides important lessons that cannot be learned throuch an approach that focuses solely on Election Day activities.
Aims of Traditional Voter Education
Traditional voter education aims to create of a climate of knowledgeable participation by all potential voters in a forthcoming election. Is also seeks to enable potential voters to cast their votes with confidence.
These objectives may also be achieved through other interventions, and educators will want to establish programmes that work in conjunction with initiatives that address such issues as voter security, basic voting procedures, accessible voting stations, and lively but nonviolent and least intimidating campaigns on the part of candidates.
Balancing voter education programmes against these other interventions is important in ensuring that budgets are not inflated. Costs of voter education programmes can and should be based on cost-per-voter estimates. It may be argued, and is on occasion argued, that elections, however expensive, are cheaper than war or endemic community conflict. This is true, but the purpose of democratic elections is to ensure ongoing periodic elections, and this cannot be done extravagantly forever. Costs need to be weighed carefully and programmes developed that reduce costs. Sometimes this may require constraining the objectives that really have to be achieved by the programme in order to have an effective election.
