What principles should be considered to guide the boundary delimitation process?

1 April 2025

In a 2007 paper published by Dr. Lisa Handley, “Challenging the Norms and Standards of Election Administration: Boundary Delimitation”, she explained how certain fundamental principles should be considered when setting international election standards to guide the delimitation process.

  • Impartiality: The boundary authority should be a nonpartisan, independent, and professional body;
  • Equality: The populations of constituencies should be as equal as possible to
    provide voters with equality of voting strength;
  • Representativeness: Constituencies should be drawn taking into account
    cohesive communities, defined by such factors as administrative boundaries,
    geographic features, and communities of interest;
  • Non-discrimination: The delimitation process should be devoid of electoral
    boundary manipulation that discriminates against voters on account of race, color,
    language, religion, or related status; and
  • Transparency: The delimitation process should as transparent and accessible to
    the public as possible.

Dr. Handley concluded that “there is no single best model for delimiting constituency boundaries. The wide variety of delimitation practices, many of them quite successful, attest to this. However, it is important to establish standards to which the delimitation process might aspire, if current practices do not already meet them. These standards will need to be flexible to be relevant to both mature and transitional democracies, but underlying all of them should be the fundamental principles of impartiality, equality, representativeness, nondiscrimination, and transparency.

Meeting standards that include an impartial boundary authority (guided by principles like equal voting strength, representativeness, and non-discrimination) as well as a process that is as transparent as possible offers credibility and legitimacy to a process that can have decided political consequences. The table below provides a summary of the principles that should guide the delimitation process and some examples of best practices that meet these standards.“

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Electoral Boundary Delimitation in Singapore

29 March 2025

What is electoral boundary delimitation?

Boundary delimitation usually refers to the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. However, it can also be used to denote the process of drawing voting areas (also called polling areas, districts or election precincts) for the purposes of assigning voters to polling places. The periodic delimitation of electoral boundaries is necessary in any representative system where single-member districts or uniformly small multi-member districts are used. If electoral boundaries are not periodically adjusted, population inequities develop across districts.

Countries have adopted various methods for delimiting districts. Countries that delimit districts must establish a formal structure and a set of rules for carrying out the delimitation process. In some, the choice of methods is simply a matter of historical tradition, but the delimitation can also be based on a variety of factors that may include the geographic size of the country, its physical features, or its financial resources. Different sets of districts can produce different election outcomes, and even if the underlying vote patterns remain constant, the choice of delimitation practices is important.

Source: ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

Observations of electoral boundary delimitation in Singapore

  • Process shrouded in secrecy, i.e. lack of transparency
  • Unexplained changes in electoral boundaries
  • Electoral boundaries may not coincide with community boundaries
  • No public representation on the Electoral Boundary Review Committee (EBRC)

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Our right to free and fair elections

27 March 2025

Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Article 21 (3)

The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

General comment adopted by the Human Rights Committee under article 40, paragraph 4, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

21. Although the Covenant does not impose any particular electoral system, any system operating in a State party must be compatible with the rights protected by article 25 and must guarantee and give effect to the free expression of the will of the electors. The principle of one person, one vote must apply, and within the framework of each State’s electoral system, the vote of one elector should be equal to the vote of another. The drawing of electoral boundaries and the method of allocating votes should not distort the distribution of voters or discriminate against any group and should not exclude or restrict unreasonably the right of citizens to choose their representatives freely.

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