What do election observers do?

I am in Egypt as an election observer for the constitutional referendum.  The Egyptians are calling our role mutaaba’, or witness, rather than muraaqib, observer, to emphasize the passive nature of the role.

So what do election observers do?  What do they see?  What do they report?

I am talking here about short-term observers.  The role of long-term observers, who are deployed months before an election, is different.  They are concerned not only with the electoral design and technical preparations but also with the overall context:  Is there freedom of speech and association?  Is there intimidation of particular groups of voters?  Are all candidates given equal time on TV and radio?  Are government resources used to influence the outcome?  It really isn’t possible to offer a judgment on whether an election (or referendum) has been free and fair without these broader considerations.  There are no official long-term observers of this Egyptian referendum, though some of those preparing for our current mission have been here since Christmas.

Short-term observers enter a country holding elections–or in my current instance a referendum–just a few days in advance.  They spend a long day in briefings, as I described yesterday.  Then they spend the voting days (January 14 and 15) focused exclusively on what is going on in and around polling places.  The observers determine their own itineraries, so my colleague and our translator spent a couple of hours yesterday with googlemaps and a list of polling centers trying to plot itineraries.

We decided to go south this morning, to an area where the Nile is an easy stone’s throw across.  Churches as well as mosques dot the landscape, as the area has a significant Coptic Christian population.  Most of the polling centers are in schools, so it is not hard to find them.  It got easier once we realized the security guards the Egyptian government was offering were not optional.  They are from the area and helped a good deal once we decided where we wanted to go, even if they were unnecessary.

We started this morning at a polling center close to our hotel, arriving before the 9 am opening.  The police and army officers at the school gate were curious but polite, checked our credentials (a letter and ID badges issued by the High Election Commission) and allowed us past a long waiting line of mostly older people.  Judges preside over polling centers these days in Egypt, so we introduced ourselves to the presiding sayyid and asked permission to watch the 6-8 poll workers do their business.

The sponsoring organization, in our case an American non-governmental organization called Democracy International, provides the questions they want answered, along with a tablet on which to record them.  This is a lot better for gathering, transmitting and aggregating data from 40 teams of observers than the paper questionnaires traditionally used.  You get lots of data points quickly.  But it is a mild annoyance to the observers, who find the software a bit cumbersome still and the format rigid.  Never mind:  it’s definitely the future of observing, though I imagine within a few years it will be done with an app on your own smart phone.

What do the sponsors want to know?  Bear with me.  The questions are almost annoyingly mundane:  did a polling official count the ballots before voting began?  Were there sufficient ballots for the voters on the list?  Was the ballot box empty before voting began?  Was it sealed?  Did the presiding officer fill out the forms he should?

It goes on in that vein after opening:  were all the necessary materials (ennumerated) available?  was the ballot box properly sealed?  Did voters show identification efore being allowed to vote?  Were women wearing the niqab properly checked by voting officials?  Were individuals permitted to vote who did not have an ID but were on the voter list?  Were people permitted to vote who presented an ID but were not on the list?  Did officials check voters’ fingers for ink before being allowed to vote?  Were ballot papers stamped properly?  Was indelible ink applied to each voter’s finger who cast a ballot?  Was secrecy of the vote ensured?  Were security forces present outside or inside the polling station?  Were any observers present and from what organizations?

You are not finished:  Did you witness active campaigning at the polling stations?  Were there any campaign materials within 200 meters of the polling station?  Did you witness any active intimidation?  Did you witness any violence?  Did you witness any targeted disenfranchisement?  Were you prevented from performing observer duties?  Were others prevented from performing observer duties?  Was the polling station accessible?  Were any complaints filed?

Then we witnessed the closing of the same polling station where we had begun the day, about 15 stations and 12 hours earlier:  when did it close?  Were voters in the queue at closing time allowed to vote?  Was the ballot box slot sealed?  Did the judge fill out the necessary forms?  Were the remaining ballot papers sealed?  Was the polling station door sealed?

Of course if this were all there were to it, I might think twice about a week-long commitment.  But it’s not.  This is a great opportunity to talk to ordinary Egyptians, who turned out in good numbers where I was deployed:  as many as 40% on the voter list had voted before closing on the first day.  That would put turnout well over the figure for the 2012 constitutional referendum, which came in under 33%.  Of course I have no way of telling what happened in other parts of the country.  I do know there was some violence, arrests and deaths, according to the press.  We witnessed none of this, happily.

I’ll have more to offer on what Egyptians are saying, both inside and outside the polling centers, once the polls close tomorrow.