The Carter Center is a not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization that has helped to improve life for people in more than 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, in partnership with Emory University to advance peace and health worldwide. 

The Carter Center’s Democracy Program works globally to promote democratic elections and governance consistent with human rights.

Election observation

The Carter Center has monitored over 100 elections in 38 countries since 1989, forging many of the techniques now common to the field. Election observers that are recognized as impartial and credible play a key role in shaping perceptions about the quality and legitimacy of electoral processes. To ensure a meaningful, nonpartisan role for its election observation activities, The Carter Center must be invited by a country's election authorities and welcomed by the major political parties.

Developing guidelines for impartial observation

The Carter Center, in cooperation with the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division and the National Democratic Institute, played a key role in producing the Declaration of Principles for International Observation, which established professional guidelines for election observation.  The Declaration has been endorsed by more than 50 organizations worldwide.

Building consensus on standards for democratic elections

The Democracy Program’s Democratic Election Standards (DES) project aims to build consensus on standards for democratic elections, based on state obligations under public international law. The Election Obligations and Standards (EOS) database, and it’s companion Assessment Manual are two of the practical tools the Center has developed to serve as a source of common criteria for assessing elections. The database consolidates more thanhttp://electionstandards.cartercenter.org/at-work/hres/ 200 sources of international law related to human rights and elections. The Center has also worked closely with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to develop a common plan of action for the promotion of the right to participate in elections by the election and human rights communities.

The Center also has built innovative, open-source software, ELMO (ELection Monitoring), which enables faster collection and analysis of data gathered by observers and soon will be integrated with specific obligations for democratic elections.

Transition monitoring and long-term support to democratic processes

Recognizing that democratic transitions are involve much more than elections, The Carter Center also conducts long-term monitoring of political transitions. It also works to strengthen civil society organizations to support democratic governance, most recently in Liberia, Tunisia and Democratic Republic of the Congo.