Although electoral courts have risen to prominence in many Latin American countries since the return to democracy in the 1980s, few countries have placed as much power and responsibility in this institution as Bolivia has.

Under a new electoral law approved in 1998, the court, along with its 31 regional branches, carries out all the traditional activities associated with elections, from certifying candidates to ensuring an accurate vote count. But the law also gives the court extraordinary responsibilities such as running Bolivia’s civil registry and, eventually, issuing national identity cards. According to Jorge Lazarte, one of the court’s five vocales or directors, political parties in the past manipulated the civil registry and identity cards in order to permit one individual, for example, to vote several times for the same party under false identities. Public outrage over such abuses led Bolivia’s Congress to put the Electoral Court in charge.

With support from the IDB-financed National Governability Program, the court is in the process of purging the civil registry of false or redundant entries, while at the same time transferring paper records to a computer database that will be available at regional branches. "Eventually," said Lazarte, "we would like our voter registry to be based on the computerized civil registry," a move that will eliminate much of the paperwork that still burdens Bolivians while further limiting opportunities for fraud.

The Electoral Court also has an unusual ability to oversee political parties’ internal affairs. Parties must report all their assets and revenues to the court, along with externally audited accounts of their campaign spending. If the court is not satisfied with these accounts it can order its own audits. "The law even allows a party’s members to file a complaint with the court if they believe their own leaders are mismanaging funds," said Lazarte.

Although the Electoral Court enjoys extraordinary prestige in surveys of public institutions, some critics claim that it is being overwhelmed by excessive responsibilities. Indeed, during recent municipal elections several parties complained that it took far too long to rule on the validity of a few contested candidacies. Lazarte agrees, and he and his colleagues are planning an administrative overhaul that would allow the court to delegate administrative manners and increase efficiency.

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