Pre-Voting Stage
Registering voters
At most places in the world, people are legally required to register as voters if they want to vote. If the information and documentary proof submitted by them fulfills the legally defined eligibility criteria, they are added to voter list for their geographical area. This step is necessary to ensure fair elections where each eligible voter has a single and equal vote only and non-eligible people (e.g. foreigners) don't vote.Maintaining records of registered voters
Voter lists prepared as above need ongoing maintainance. It involves reaching out and getting new people to register, making sure the voter lists don't get wrongly changed or corrupted and also removing folks due to death, change of residence, loss of eligibility, or such other reasons.Voting Stage
Assuring zero votes just before voting begins
On voting day before voting begins, election officials, party stakeholders as well as neutral public observers are shown that the ballot box is empty from inside. This transparency builds trust that there is no foul play such as pre-stuffed ballot papers in the box. Once observers are satisifed about this, the box is locked/sealed except for the slit to cast paper ballots throughVerifying voter's identity on voting day before allowing vote
Making poll list or participation list of those who cast a vote
Most places in the world have laws that require verification of voter's identity before voting. As the law may permit from place to place, voters can identify themselves by an id proof, or by answering questions about personal information they provided when registering to vote, or by getting another voter having a valid id proof to vouch for them, etc. If the voter's identity matches with an entry on voter list, they are marked off and allowed to vote. If they were already marked, they are not allowed to vote second time. This ensures accountability that only eligible people voted and nobody voted twice, and thus contributes to fairness in voting.Marking the intended candidate(s) for vote
After identifying, voter collects ballot paper, walks into a suitable eclosure or partition hidden from everyone, where the ballot box is present. Voter marks the candidate(s) he/she intends to vote, on the ballot paper as per rules given. This is the marking stage and law may allow voter to discard the ballot and get another one in case of wrong or flawed marking. This is in spirit of free and fair elections. No pressure on voter. No injustice to their vote for goof-ups. Of course, the wasted ballot paper must be discarded in a way that it can't be dubiously used to cast an extra vote by anyoneCasting/recording the marked vote
Once the voter is sure the marking he/she made on ballot paper is correct, he/she puts the paper ballot in the ballot box. Now the vote is cast/recorded, and cannot be changed by voter. Since the marking of the vote as well as casting/recording of the vote takes place behind an enclosure or partition, no one can know whom the voter voted for. This scheme of 'secret ballot' ensures that voter can vote freely, without of fear of discrimination or retribution.Counting of cast/recorded votes
Combining individual votes or vote counts at constituency level
After voting is over, the ballot boxes are immediately sealed off. The seals are broken as per procedure only at the time of counting. This is to ensure that votes counted are exactly what voters had voted and fairness and integrity of elections is maintained. Counting may happen at the polling place/precinct/ward itself or the sealed ballot boxes may be sent to a designated central place for counting. If sent to a central place, typically ballots from all polling stations for a given constituency are mixed first, and then counted. This protects secrecy of ballot and no polling place has to fear discrimination based on how they voted.Tabulation and display of results
Before final tabulation of results, officials double check, tripple check the counts. Stringent tallies are done across the stages too. All ballot boxes are accounted for. Total voted ballots must be less than or equal to the total ballot papers that were marked as given out to voters. Total ballots papers given out to voters must again be less than or equal to total ballot papers sent out to polling stations, which should of course be less than or equal to the total ballot papers ordered to be printed. It's even better if such acceptable difference between ballot counts of various stages is acconted for in specific ways such as discarded ballots (before casting vote), or invalid votes cast, unused ballots, etc. As you can see, book keeping and accountability is a major key to free and fair elections, and transparency is the key for true accountability. Observers, stakeholders, and srcutineers of the public all must have access to these records for cross-checking and raising issues.
Fairness may still be compromised if eligible voters get wrongly rejected when they apply. This could happen due any variety of reasons such as simple mistakes in providing info/docs with application, administrative errors, deliberate malice of some officials, or even systematic voter list fraud and disenfranchisement of groups to affect election results. This can be kept in check, detected and corrected by keeping voter registration authorities accountable through transparency.
First, the eligibility critieria, the rules and the process for voter registration should be very clear and accessible publicly, easily. Second, the law must require that voter lists are available for scrutiny by anyone from public who wishes to, so that wrongful changes can be noticed and questioned. Third, and this is relatively new, even applications for voter registrations should be available for public scrutiny. 18
The third part combined with the second part empowers public raise a stink and question authorities if eligible voters who applied were wrongly rejected and not added to voter list. Getting to see forms also brings out simple avoidable mistakes that get applications rejected. That can be used to educate future applicants.
This is of course all for maintaining fairness in elections and again needs accountability and transparency. Transparency in voter lists and application records described in Step 1 above again enables people to question authorties, keep them accountable as well as achieve corrective measures if any voters are found unjustly, unexplainably added or removed from voter list.
For best transparency, the ballot box is literally made of transparent material on all sides. This further assures observers that the ballot box is not only visibly empty on the inside but also doesn't have tricks like hidden compartments and panels for cheating. Earliest known example of this seems to be in 1857 19. Shamefully, I haven't found a single mention of transparent ballot box on ECI's website! But apparently we are exporting such transparent ballot boxes to Sri Lanka! 2021 So when we move back to paper ballot voting from EVMs, we MUST insist that EC uses transparent ballot boxes!