ACE celebrates its 20th Anniversary

This year, the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network celebrates 20 years as the world’s largest online source of electoral knowledge, promoting credible and transparent electoral processes around the world. Reaching over 2,5 million visits per year, the ACE website now provides more than 10,000 pages of knowledge resources in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The timeline below, shows the complete story of ACE and of how eight dedicated partners managed to not only make it survive but thrive.

Launched at the United Nations in 1998 by International IDEA, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), ACE was initially created as the Administration and Cost of Elections project. It was the world’s first online resource of its kind in the field of elections.

Today, the project is known as the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, expanding its mandate in 2006 to become a more dynamic and comprehensive knowledge repository, covering far more issues than just the administration and cost of elections.

This includes, among other things:

• Expert Advice and real time knowledge services by the ACE Practitioners’ Network, an online network of over 1000 election professionals from around the world;
• One-stop-shop Topics Pages which provide in-depth encyclopaedia reading and related information for 13 topics covering key electoral issues and steps of the electoral cycle;
• Comparative Data, a systematic collection of election-related data for more than 200 countries and territories;
• Country Pages for more than 200 countries and territories;
• a virtual library of Electoral Materials, such as sample ballot papers, civic information materials and legislations from around the world;
• a global Election Calendar; with upcoming national elections;
• an Election Observation Portal with more than XX election observation reports; and
• an introduction and list to Capacity Development opportunities for EMB’s and election administrators.

The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network now has eight partner organizations, leading in the electoral processes field: The Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) , Elections Canada, Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) , The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) , International IDEA, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The Electoral Assistance Division of the UN Department of Political Affairs (UNEAD) and The Carter Center (TCC).

Stay tuned for more celebrations!

To celebrate its many successes, the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network is launching a structural and visual revamp of its website, as well as this Anniversary Timeline, highlighting key achievements since 1998. In addition, a new Encyclopaedia Topic on Elections and Conflict is being launched. In the coming months, the ACE Partners will also launch two additional Topics, on Gender and Elections and Youth and Elections.

The formal 20th anniversary celebration of ACE will take place Mexico City in mid-October 2018 during the 8th Forum of Democracy in Latin America, organized by INE. Please visit INE website for more information on the event.