"This publication provides an inventory of United Nations jurisprudence relevant to electoral processes. It organizes and cross-references international law applicable to elections in order to make it accessible to national and international stakeholders. The Guidelines aspire to near-global applicability and focuses explicitly on national accountability and ownership, an essential tool for EMBs and national stakeholders engaged in electoral reforms. The focus on UN treaty obligations is meant to promote consistency, objectivity, impartiality, accuracy and professionalism in drafting and reviewing legal frameworks for elections. The Guidelines include tables of jurisprudence and checklists which facilitate review of how far national legal frameworks comply with UN treaty provisions and jurisprudence on elections."--

Secrecy of the ballot

Building trust and professionalism in the management of electoral processes remains a major challenge for Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs), institutions and/or bodies responsible for managing elections. The 'credibility gap' - the diminished public confidence in the integrity and diligence for many electoral institutions and their activities - is a common problem for EMBs around the world. Many EMBs face basic design questions as they seek to work better: how should EMBs be structured to ensure that they can act independently? How do EMBs relate to stakeholders such as the media, political parties and donors? How can EMBs evaluate their performance and use experience to build sustainable elections? "The Electoral Management Design Handbook" is written for electoral administrators, electoral administration designers and other practitioners involved in building professional, sustainable and cost-effective electoral administrations which can deliver legitimate and credible free and fair elections. It is a comparative study that shares best practices and know-how from around the world on financing, structuring and evaluation of Electoral Management Bodies

Publisher Description

Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election produced the biggest political scandal in a generation, marking the beginning of an ongoing attack on democracy. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Russia was found to have engaged in more “information operations,” a practice that has been increasingly adopted by other countries. In Election Interference, Jens David Ohlin makes the case that these operations violate international law, not as a cyberwar or a violation of sovereignty, but as a profound assault on democratic values protected by the international legal order under the rubric of self-determination. He argues that, in order to confront this new threat to democracy, countries must prohibit outsiders from participating in elections, enhance transparency on social media platforms, and punish domestic actors who solicit foreign interference. This important book should be read by anyone interested in protecting election integrity in our age of social media disinformation.

Electronic voting is often seen as a tool for making the electoral process more efficient and for increasing trust in its management. Properly implemented, e-voting solutions can increase the security of the ballot, speed up the processing of results and make voting easier. However, the challenges are considerable. If not carefully planned and designed, e-voting can undermine the confidence in the whole electoral process. Technology upgrades in elections are always challenging projects that require careful deliberation and planning. Introducing e-voting is probably the most difficult upgrade as this technology touches the core of the entire electoral process—the casting and counting of the votes. E-voting greatly reduces direct human control and influence in this process. This provides an opportunity for solving some old electoral problems, but also introduces a whole range of new concerns. Consequently, e-voting usually triggers more criticism and opposition and is more disputed than any other information technology application in elections. This Policy Paper outlines contextual factors that can influence the success of e-voting solutions and highlights the importance of considering these factors before choosing to introduce new voting technologies.