AWEPA's suggestions on
improving the Election Laws

AWEPA considers that the present election law has worked effectively and transparently, and does not need substantial changes. Nevertheless, we feel that the 1999 elections did show that some problems exist. Thus AWEPA would like to suggest some modifications which we believe would improve the electoral process.

In the following four articles:

• We make specific proposals to correct errors, inconsistencies, and anomalies in the present laws, and propose minor changes to the law which would lead to smoother operation.
• Suggestions are made for ways to reduce the very large number of errors which occurred in 1999, including specific proposals to allow more recounts of the votes of individual polling stations (assembleias de voto) and to increase the role of provincial election commissions.
• We argue that increasing party representation at all levels has made the election machine slower and heavier without increasing confidence, and that only much greater transparency will allow all parties and the press to identify fraud and errors if they occur. Thus we suggest practical methods to increase transparency.
• We recognise that computers are essential to tabulate the final results, but we also recognise that computers have been the main area of genuine distrust by the opposition, and thus we suggest that the law create an Independent Technical Commission to Oversee Computerisation.

 
Correcting errors and smoothing procedures

In this article, we point to relatively detailed problems with the present election law, and look at ways to smooth procedures.

There are three specific problems with the election law in use in 1999:

• The method of assigning the number of AR deputies to a province (Art 137, Lei 3/99) is mathematically incorrect, as the CNE discovered last year when it led to the assignment of 251 seats for the 250 places in the AR. The d'Hondt method (Art 144, Lei 3/99) used to assign seats to parties must also be used to set the number of deputies in each province.
• Polling station staff, party delegados, non-party observers, journalists, police and others are not allowed to vote if they are not assigned to the polling station where they were registered. (Art 65, 66, Lei 3/99) This is a large number of people, who were allowed to vote at other polling stations in 1994. It makes no difference to the final result, as long as these people are only allowed to vote in the same province (círculo eleitoral) in which they are registered. The indelible ink prevents them from voting twice. It is recommended that polling station staff, party delegados, non-party observers, journalists, police, drivers and others who are working on the election be allowed to vote at other polling stations, and that their names and voters' number be recorded in the acta (the long report which each polling station makes).
• The constitution allows anyone over 18 years of age to vote. This means people must be allowed to register when they are 17 years of age, but the register must indicate the birthdate of people who are between 17 and 18, to ensure that only those over 18 can vote. With the new computerised register, this is possible.

There are three areas where the running of polling stations could be made smoother.

• The law should allow the extension of voting for an extra day in a limited number of districts or even a limited number of polling stations, where there are problems such as those in 1999 caused by the rain.
• There is no need for two full days of voting. UNDP and the Carter Center have suggested that polling stations should close at noon on the second day, and AWEPA agrees. This would allow counting to begin and be completed in daylight, which would reduce the number of errors caused by tired staff counting votes in the dark. In polling stations without electricity, staff should be permitted to suspend counting if it becomes too dark.
• The law and the subsequent manuals assign too many tasks to the president of the mesa (polling station presiding officer). The president should be allowed to delegate tasks as he or she sees fit, in order to make the process run more smoothly and more rapidly.

There are contradictions between the national and local elections laws, and this has become clear in discussions of the Moatize by-election. The calendar in the local election law (Lei 6/97) allows a much shorter time than the calendar in the national election law (Lei 3/99); AWEPA suggests that the national election law simply be modified to say that the calendar set in the local election law applies to those elections. A second, more political, problem is that the national election law does not distinguish between small by-elections called on the death or resignation of a municipal president, and full national elections, which makes a small local election a very heavy, expensive and complex process, with three levels of election commissions and party representatives; there should be a simplified process for small local elections.

Finally, we note that the election law allow the Council of Ministers to set the date of local elections and the President of the Republic to set the date of national elections, but in both cases this must be within a defined period after the end of the five year mandate of the national and local assemblies. In other words, there is very little real flexibility in setting the election dates, and this adds another unnecessary step. Thus AWEPA suggests that the AR consider fixing the election date, perhaps for the first weekend in October for national elections and the first weekend in June for local elections.

 
How to reduce the number of errors?

The most serious problems in 1999 arose with respect to the tabulation of the results. The central difficulty was the very large number of errors with respect to the editais - the short report forms prepared by the staff at each polling station. A second problem was the large number of votes and editais which needed to be reconsidered at national levels. In this article, we make detailed suggestions for reducing errors in polling stations, call for a further increased role by provincial election commissions, and call for the law to allow more recounts.

There are four changes to the procedures which AWEPA believes would sharply reduce the error rate. One has already been noted above: closing polling stations at noon on the second day and ensuring that counting at the polling station takes place in daylight.

Second, the edital (short report) form must be made clearer and more detailed, and should include:

• the names of all parties or candidates, printed on the sheet in the same order in which they appear on the ballot paper, with space for the number of votes for each candidate. (A major problem in 1999 was that polling station staff did not always write the list of parties in the same order, often starting with the party which received the most votes.)
• clear lines for nulos and protested votes.
• spaces for the number of people voting who are not registered at the polling station (if the proposal above is adopted), for the number of ballot papers in the ballot box, and for the number of unused ballot papers.

Third, we do not think that the election staff should be required to add up the totals, which caused many errors, but only report the totals which they actually count. Instead, we believe that the computer software should do the sums.

Fourth, we call for a relatively obscure change in the law relating to the counting of protested votes. The law is clear that protested votes are counted and then set aside for reconsideration by the National Election Commission. Virtually all polling stations, however, treated protested votes like nulos, leading to incorrect sums. Although the present law is clear, we call for protested votes to not be included in the totals and by put aside, like nulos, for later reconsideration.

Compared to 1994, the 1999 elections gave a substantially greater role to provincial elections commissions. We support this, and would extend their role. In particular, we suggest that nulos and protested votes should be considered at provincial rather than national level.

Next, we propose to introduce the concept of recounts of votes of individual polling stations (assembleias do voto), and that recounts should be carried out at provincial level. The law (Art 88, Lei 3/99) already requires that all voting materials be sent to the district election comission. We propose that this be changed to send all voting materials, including ballot papers (boletins de voto), to the provincial election commission with 72 hours, as is already required for invalid votes (nulos) and some of the voting materials (Art 85, 86, 88, Lei 3/99). There should be an automatic recount of the votes if there appears to be a major error in the edital, in particular if:

• the number of valid votes, less the number of people who voted who were not registered at the polling station, exceeds 1040, or
• the sum of the number of votes for each candidate, plus the spoiled (nulo), blank and protested votes, differs from the number of ballot papers used by more than 1 per cent.

The computers would be programmed to automatically reject any edital which met one of these conditions.

Where there are other obvious anomalies or protests by one party, the provincial elections commission should be able to do a recount. The use of recounts would ensure that no polling station was excluded from the results.

There should be special editais (report forms) at provincial level for each polling station, showing the nulos and protested votes which have been reclassified as valid, and detailing any recounts. No editais and no nulos would be submitted to the national election commission.

If these tasks are given to the provincial elections commission, under present procedures they would be overworked and would not complete their tasks within a week. Therefore, we propose that before the voting day, the provincial elections commission should constitute teams of 3 or 5 people, in the same proportions as in the provincial elections commission, who would carry out the reassessment of nulos and protested votes and do the recounts required. These people should have, at the very least, a secondary school education and some training; they might, for example, be polling station presidents. Wherever possible, decisions should be made by consensus; when a majority vote is used, this should be recorded and published.

In this article we have proposed that:

• Edital forms be made clearer and have more information printed on them.
• More should be done at provincial rather than national level.
• Teams of additional people should be selected and trained in advance to help the provincial election commissions, and
• Recounts should take place where needed to ensure that every polling station is counted.

 
Use transparency to increase monitoring and raise confidence

The role of political parties and their representatives within election commissions and STAEs is a political issue which we do not propose to discuss. But AWEPA does wish to argue that increasing the number of party-nominated people within the electoral system has made the vote counting and tabulation process more complex and slower, yet it has not increased confidence.

The goal of any political party must be to ensure that other parties do not use the electoral machine to prevent fraud. The 1999 elections showed that even with people in the election commissions and STAEs at all levels, some parties believed that fraud had been committed, but that they could not prove it. The problem with naming individuals as watchdogs is that the party is dependent on them being alert and understanding a wide range of details about the process.

We wish to argue that the only way to ensure confidence is through an extreme form of transparency, under which all details of the election are made public and can be scrutinised not just by the parties, but by the press, civil society, election experts and even the international community. Furthermore, this is in keeping with the spirit of the Mozambican electoral law, which already requires that a copy of the short report form, the edital, be posted at each individual polling station as soon as the counting is completed. That means the result of each polling station is known to the public immediately. This transparency simply needs to be extended.

We note, for example, that one party has called for polling station staff, at the completion of counting, to give a signed copy of the edital to a delegate of each party which is present. Although this requires extra work, we think this should be permitted because it will increase transparency and offer the parties a chance to do their own counts more accurately.

In this context, we call for slight revision in the counting process at provincial level, and for copies of all documents to be made available. Under the system we propose, editais would be entered into the computer at provincial level. To these, would later be added the special editais for reconsidered nulos and protested votes. If the computer rejected an edital, or if a recount was required for any other reason, a report would be made and the recount would be done and the new edital submitted for entry into the computer. To ensure total transparency, we call for a set of the four or six documents to be posted or collected together in a loose leaf note book (ring binder) as soon as they become available, with all documents for each polling station kept together for easy comparison. The following would be made public as the counting proceeded:

• A photocopy of the original edital.
• If the edital is rejected and a recount required, a report stating this fact and saying why.
• The recount edital, if needed.
• A printout of the data for the polling station as entered into the computer (after the data has been entered twice by two different people, and the computer system has accepted that the two sets of data agree).
• The edital for the nulos and reconsidered votes considered valid.
• A printout of the final result for each polling station.

This would all be done on paper, and not through access to a computer. It would require a photocopier and computer printer in each province, but we do not consider this excessive to ensure transparency. This notebook would be kept by the provincial administration permanently, and could be consulted by any member of the public.

Just as the vote count in an individual polling station is open to party delegates, the press and non-party observers, all recounts and reconsideration of nulos and protested votes must also be open to press, party delegates and non-party observers.

We note that the tabulation of results in Mozambique is a very slow process, and that accusations have been made by both major parties that the other side slowed the vote counting for its own ends. Again, confidence building requires the maximum transparency. Thus, we call for the publication of partial results as least twice a day during the counting process. The partial results would include:

• Votes for each candidate.
• Number of polling stations included.
• Number of polling stations for which nulos have been reconsidered.
• Number of recounts included.
• Percentage of polling stations still not included.

Rapid publication of partial results is common in most countries, because it prevents rumours and insecurity by showing that the counting is progressing normally.

In order to count the maximum number of votes as quickly as possible, we would propose that computer staff should first enter the results of all polling stations, and only then enter recounted results and the results of the reconsideration of nulos.

We note that decisions of provincial and national election commissions are taken in secret and often not published, which is a sure way to guarantee gossip, confusions and distrust. Therefore we argue that all decisions at any level taken by a vote and not by consensus should be publicly reported - only in that way will it be possible to prove or disprove claims of bias in the voting process.

Finally, the provincial election commission would be expected to publish a complete report, polling station by polling station, and with a complete list of decisions reached by vote instead of consensus, within a week of the completion of the count.

Parties should be allowed at least a week after the publication of all such reports to bring challenges to the national election commission or the supreme court.

How would this system prevent fraud? Those who claim fraud in the 1999 election claim that votes were somehow inserted into the counting process or into the computers during various stages of the count. If there are public documents at each stage of the count, then parties and the press can compare and see if changes have occured between the original edital and what appears in the final report. Furthermore, as another check on computer fraud, each party can use its own people to add up the totals, and confirm that the published totals are correct. Nothing can be added or altered without it being obvious to the press and party officials.

Some people in all parties do not want transparency. The loser will always want to claim fraud and may not want the ability to prove or disprove the claims. Similarly, election officials do not want to admit to mistakes and sloppyness. But transparency will be the only way to build confidence in the electoral process in Mozambique.

 
No one trusts computers

Finally, we note that the use of computers in tabulating results is essential, but is also the source of more distrust than any other area. We do not find all of this distrust justified, but we do feel that problems with computers and computer technicians occurred during the 1999 elections which could easily have intensified distrust.

We are opposed to the appointment of further party-linked technicians, which did not prove useful in 1999, and instead wish to propose an entirely new route.

We call for the creation of an Independent Technical Commission to Oversee Computerisation. It would have one member appointed by each of the two main parties and an agreed and neutral chair (perhaps from outside Mozambique). All members would have to be qualified computer professionals. The procedure would be as follows:

• The Commission would write the specifications for new software, which would be subject to an international or regional tender. The software would be required to have adequate security and other checks, including an audit trail showing all changes to data entries (and which would be easily readabe and could be easily released to parties on request).
• After delivery, the Commission would verify that the specification has been met.
• There would be a trial run, using data from a past election from at least one province, which would be open to parties, press and public. (Such a trial would also test the system of release of polling station by polling station documents, proposed above.)
• Copies of the software would be available to any party to be checked by its own specialists.
• Once the software had been accepted, no changes could be made except by unanimous decision of the commission in the event that a major fault was found later.
• Once in place, the software would not be changed or modified before the next national election.

 
Simpler, better prepared, and more transparent

In these articles, we argue that confidence will be increased through:

• Simplification, ensuring that all observers understand the process.
• Advance preparation, of software and teams, to reduce the number of problems that occur during the actual count.
• Transparency, to ensure that all decisions and every essential piece of information is public, so that parties and the press can do their own counts and their own interpretations based on accurate information.

No election anywhere in the world is perfect, but transparency means that opposition parties and the press are more able to discover errors and misconduct, and bring these to the attention of the national election commission, the courts, and the public. This is the only way to ensure genuine confidence in the process.
 

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