From the Parliament to a Polling Station: How to Make Electoral Laws More Comprehensible to Election Administrators

Abstract

This article suggests that law modelling (using Business Process Model and Notation, BPMN) could make electoral laws more comprehensible to different stakeholders, and in particular, to election administration, especially in cases of complex elections with multiple voting channels. This solution helps election administrators to translate the complexity of electoral laws into clear instructions. By this, election administration can adapt to the frequent changes in laws, reach better regulatory compliance, and address the barriers they meet during the delivery of the elections, like overtasking and lack of institutional memory. As a proof of the concept, we demonstrate the applicability of the proposed solution by modelling one voting channel available in the 2019 parliamentary elections in Estonia, advance voting. The article contributes to the theory on election administration and suggests how this solution could be used in practice: in the field of the electoral law and outside of it.

Presidential Nominations from Active Cabinet Ministers: A Delicate Balance between the Interpretation of Constitutional Court Decisions and Political Interests

“…53 Power misuse by state officials, such as ministers, often stems from conflicts of interest in exercising their authority. As defined in Article 1, paragraph (14) of Law Number 30 of 2014 concerning Government Administration, 54 a conflict of interest occurs when government officials use their authority to benefit themselves or others, impairing their neutrality and the quality of their decisions and actions. 55 May Lim Charity, drawing from a book on conflict of interest, elaborates that such a conflict arises when a state official, vested with power and authority by law, has personal interests that could compromise their performance and decision quality.…”