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1. Risk-Limiting Audits: A Guide for Election Observation Efforts

Author:
The Carter Center
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The risk-limiting audit (RLA) is a statistical technique for limiting the risk of certifying an incorrect election outcome — that is, the risk that the apparent winner did not in fact receive the most votes. A random sample of paper ballots is visually checked by auditors, and the results are compared with the outcome reported by the tabulator/scanner equipment. If there is sufficiently strong statistical evidence based on this sample that the reported outcome was correct, the audit stops and the tabulated result is confirmed. If evidence from the sample is inconclusive, another sample is drawn, potentially progressing all the way to a full hand recount. The RLA thus either confirms the reported outcome or corrects it.
Topic:
Elections, Election watch, Election Observation, and Audit
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. FES Launches New Tool to Promote Disability-Inclusive Election Observation

Author:
Virginia Atkinson and Rebecca Aaberg
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
Abstract:
ccording to the World Health Organization, one out of every seven people in the world has a disability, yet citizens with disabilities remain underrepresented in political life as voters, election observers, candidates and election officials. Mainstream observer groups often do not hire people with disabilities to serve as observers and only include basic, if any, questions on access for people with disabilities in their checklists. To ensure election observations account for the various barriers that women and men with disabilities encounter, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), along with disabled person’s organization (DPO) partners around the world, has developed an Election Access Observation Toolkit. IFES’ Election Access Observation Toolkit provides a methodology for conducting standalone observations on accessibility, as well as questions for mainstream observer groups to incorporate disability inclusion into their missions. Drawing upon IFES’ experience conducting dozens of election access observations in countries around the world and international and regional standards for inclusive elections, the Election Access Observation Toolkit provides DPOs and election observer groups with the background and tools to effectively incorporate a disability rights perspective into domestic and international observation missions. The toolkit, supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, United States Agency for International Development and Global Affairs Canada, gathers lessons learned from election access observations conducted by IFES and DPOs in a wide range of country contexts, including Indonesia, Haiti and Kosovo.
Topic:
Elections, Election watch, Disability, and Election Observation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Election Forensics Toolkit and Guide

Author:
Allen Hicken and Walter Mebane
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education (IIE)
Abstract:
There is an acute need for methods of detecting and investigating fraud in elections, because the consequences of electoral fraud are grave for democratic stability and quality. When the electoral process is compromised by fraud, intimidation, or even violence, elections can become corrosive and destabilizing—sapping support for democratic institutions; inflaming suspicion; and stimulating demand for extra-constitutional means of pursuing political agendas, including violence. Accurate information about irregularities can help separate false accusations from evidence of electoral malfeasance. Accurate information about the scope of irregularities can also provide a better gauge of election quality. Finally, accurate information about the geographic location of malfeasance—the locations where irregularities occurred and how they cluster—can allow election monitors and pro-democracy organizations to focus attention and resources more efficiently and to substantiate their assessments of electoral quality. Election forensics is an emerging field in which scholars use a diverse set of statistical tools—including techniques similar to those developed to detect financial fraud—to analyze numerical electoral data and detect where patterns deviate from those that should occur naturally, following demonstrated mathematical principles. Numbers that humans have manipulated present patterns that are unlikely to occur if produced by a natural process—such as free and fair elections or normal commercial transactions. These deviations suggest either that the numbers were intentionally altered or that other factors—such as a range of normal strategic voting practices—influenced the electoral results. The greater the number of statistical tests that identify patterns that deviate from what is expected to naturally occur, the more likely that the deviation results from fraud rather than legal strategic voting. Through a Research and Innovation Grant funded by USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance under the Democracy Fellows and Grants Program, a research team from the University of Michigan, led by Professors Walter Mebane and Allen Hicken, built an innovative online tool, the Election Forensics Toolkit, that allows researchers and practitioners to conduct complex statistical analysis on detailed, localized data produced through the electoral process. The Election Forensics Toolkit presents results in a variety of ways—including detailed country maps showing “hot spots” of potential fraud—that allow practitioners not only to see where electoral fraud may have occurred but also the probability that the disturbances in the election data that the statistical analyses detect are attributable to fraud, rather than to other cultural or political influences, such as gerrymandering or geographic distribution of voting constituencies, among others. The team also produced two publications under the DFG grant: a Guide to Election Forensics and a more detailed Elections Forensics Toolkit DRG Center Working Paper. The Guide provides a more general introduction to election forensics as a field, and the DRG Center Working Paper focuses on presenting in detail the results of applying election forensics to specific elections in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Libya, South Africa, and Uganda
Topic:
Corruption, Politics, Elections, Democracy, Election watch, and USAID
Political Geography:
Uganda, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, Libya, South Africa, Cambodia, Albania, and Global Focus

4. Access to Justice and Electoral Integrity

Author:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
Abstract:
What is the importance of granting access to justice for the rule of law and electoral integrity? What are the key principles for effective, timely and impartial administration of justice? The Kofi Annan Foundation’s policy brief, entitled “Access to Justice and Electoral Integrity,” reviews international standards and best practices in which key principles are applied at the crossroads of elections and human rights. It demonstrates the importance of an effective institutional framework that provides legal redress to protect and effectively exercise rights linked to political participation and representation, as well as the remedies and reparations of those violations.
Topic:
Human Rights, Elections, Election watch, and Voting
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Election Audits: International Principles that Protect Election Integrity

Author:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
Abstract:
The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and Democracy International (DI) have released a new joint white paper that identifies best practices for election audits in developing democracies. Election audits, which are increasingly used as a means of settling disputes about electoral results, are often conducted as ad hoc processes without clearly defined standards and procedures. In this collaborative effort, IFES and DI put forth recommendations to guide electoral management bodies in preparing for election audits. As the international community continues to support electoral processes in developing democracies around the world, it is critical to come to consensus on standards that should be applied both to assess the need for an election audit and to conduct such an audit. This white paper is the first effort at building that consensus. Elections in developing and post-conflict environments can offer countries a path to democracy and their citizens the prospect of a better life. The peaceful and credible resolution of electoral disputes is of special importance in these contexts, where legal frameworks for elections are sometimes ambiguous, the rule of law may be weak, and allegations of fraud are commonplace and frequently legitimate. Drawing on their extensive involvement in several recent election audits in developing democracies, IFES and DI seek to define the most important considerations for audits, based on the premise that they should be used only in limited circumstances and according to clearly defined and predetermined frameworks. Ad hoc audit processes, conducted absent a clear regulatory framework, can weaken the credibility of election outcomes and undermine the ability of new democracies to provide effective governance and to hold elected officials accountable to their citizens.
Topic:
Elections, Election watch, Conflict, and Rigged Elections
Political Geography:
Global Focus