Election commission

An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of election procedures. The exact name used varies from country to country, including such terms as "electoral commission", "central election commission", "electoral branch" or "electoral court". Election commissions can be independent, mixed, judicial or governmental. They may also be responsible for electoral boundary delimitation. In federations there may be a separate body for each subnational government.

Electoral models

In the independent model the election commission is independent of the executive and manages its own budget. Countries with an independent election commission include Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the United Kingdom. In some of these countries the independence of the election commission is constitutionally guaranteed e.g. section 190 of the Constitution of South Africa.

In the branch model the election commission is often called an electoral branch, and is usually a constitutionally-recognized separate branch of government, with its members appointed by either the executive or the legislative branch. Countries with an electoral branch include Bolivia, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Electoral Commission (United States)

The Electoral Commission was a temporary body created by Congress to resolve the disputed United States presidential election of 1876. It consisted of 15 members. The election was contested by the Democratic ticket, Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks, and the Republican ticket, Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler. Twenty electoral votes, from the states of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina, were in dispute; the resolution of these disputes would determine the outcome of the election. Facing a constitutional crisis the likes of which the nation had never seen, Congress passed a law forming the Electoral Commission to settle the result.

The Commission consisted of fifteen members: five representatives, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices. Eight members were Republicans; seven were Democrats. The Commission ultimately voted along party lines to award all twenty disputed votes to Hayes, thus assuring his victory in the Electoral College by a margin of 185-184.

Electoral Commission (Ireland)

An independent electoral commission is planned by the current Irish government to oversee the conduct of all elections in the state. This responsibility is at present distributed among various government departments, statutory agencies and components of the Oireachtas (parliament).

History

In 2008, the then Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government commissioned and published a study on introducing an electoral commission, carried out by academics from University College Dublin. After the 2011 general election, the Fine Gael and Labour parties formed a coalition government whose programme included a commitment to establish an electoral commission. Such a commission was also recommended in the Constitutional Convention's 2013 report on the system of elections to Dáil Éireann (lower house of the Oireachtas), which was also endorsed the government.Alan Kelly, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, outlined progress of the plan in Seanad Éireann (upper house of the Oireachtas) in December 2014, The government published a consultation paper in January 2015, and said it intended to introduce a bill in the Oireachtas in 2015. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht discussed the plan with Alan Kelly on 10 March 2015. Kelly stated that drafting the enabling bill would begin when the committee had consulted and reported back to him, that he expected the bill to be enacted by the end of 2015, that the commission would not be established before the next general election, and that functions should be assigned to it on a phased basis. In April 2015 the committee invited submissions on the government's consultation paper from interest groups, and held hearings with them in June and July. The committee's report was launched on 14 January 2016.