A standout best practice is having a dedicated election management workforce. Rather than depending entirely on seconded staff, Pakistan should invest in developing an Election Commission Civil Service, a specialized cadre of officers and support staff whose careers lie in election administration. These could start at junior levels (e.g., election officers at the tehsil/district level) and be promoted up to provincial election commissioners and directorates at ECP headquarters. This cadre would develop expertise in logistics, voter education, legal aspects, and the use of technology in elections. Crucially, they would owe allegiance to the ECP’s chain of command rather than to provincial governments or other departments, reducing conflicts of interest. We can draw here from the “five rules” of civil service reform advocated by governance experts in Pakistan and apply them to the ECP:
- The service should be created through an Act of Parliament (or an amendment to the Elections Act) specifically establishing an “Election Service of Pakistan.” This would fulfill the constitutional requirement (Article 240) that services be created by legislation and give the election staff a clear legal status. An act could outline the structure, functions, and protections for this service.
- The internal structure of ECP should mirror federal principles, with clear demarcation between federal authority and provincial operations. For example, the ECP Secretariat could have wings for operations, legal affairs, training, IT, etc., and each province could have an election commissioner with sufficient autonomy to manage provincial staff. Decentralizing operational control (while maintaining policy unity) would make ECP more responsive. The goal is an agile organization, not a monolithic bureaucracy.
- Within the Election Service, there should be merit-based recruitment and promotion, competitive salaries, and continuous training to build expertise. The cadre’s postings (e.g., returning officers, monitoring teams, and training supervisors) should be managed by ECP itself, insulating them from external influence. Over time, the reliance on outside temporary staff can be reduced; perhaps key polling staff like presiding officers can be drawn from a pool of trained volunteers or contractual election staff that ECP maintains, rather than randomly assigning school teachers.
