There are many types of investigations. The media often undertake their own investigations when reporting on allegations of voting fraud or other electoral problems. NGOs and national election observers may also investigate problems that they encounter and gather evidence. They then publicize the problem or give the evidence to a government prosecutor.

Citizen groups and the media can play an effective role in ensuring that integrity issues are unofficially investigated if lack of political will or resources prevents the holding of an official investigation. In countries where such unofficial investigations take place, the law would generally include rules to protect the rights and privacy of individuals, and to prevent interference with official investigations.

Official Investigations

Each country has its own system for investigating complaints about electoral violations. The details of the system are usually set out in legislation and regulations, which mandate a specific agency or agencies to handle these issues.

In some systems, the official investigative mechanism is the police, working with the electoral management body or an oversight agency. In other systems, investigation is the responsibility of the electoral management body or a specific office within that body—for instance, the Commissioner of Canada Elections in Canada.

In federal systems, the investigative body that will handle a case may be decided by which law has been broken. For example, in the United States there is an office within the Department of Justice for federal election crimes, but individual states handle violations of state law. The national-level Federal Elections Commission investigates violations of campaign financing legislation, although few cases are addressed in this manner.

An official investigation seeks to determine whether an infraction or crime has been committed, uncover the relevant facts and consider whether the facts indicate who is responsible. If the investigation leads to a reasonable assumption of guilt, the information must be handed to the enforcement agency. The relevant official (prosecutor in criminal cases) usually determines whether the evidence warrants further action, and who should be charged with what crime or violation.

However, in many cases a determination of who is responsible may not be possible or even relevant to the outcome of an investigation of an administrative (rather than criminal) nature. This is true, for example, when an EMB investigates complaints of fraud or other irregularities. Its main and most urgent aim will be to establish if any irregularities indeed occurred and then to correct or eliminate their impact on the election results. The question as to who committed the irregularity may then be a secondary matter, or one that can be addressed without the urgency required of releasing credible election results. 

Investigating with Integrity

Election-related investigations must be held to the same high standards of integrity that are expected of electoral administrators and participants. In general, maintaining integrity in an investigation requires:

• Independence. An investigation must be objective and impartial. This is difficult when political pressure is placed on investigators to arrive at a certain outcome. It is easier to maintain objectivity if the investigative agency is not dependent on another agency for direction, resources or personnel.
• Neutrality. The investigative agency should be neutral, as should its investigators. Neutrality may be easier to maintain if the agency is politically independent, and if staff members are public service employees rather than political appointees. Neutrality can also be promoted by requiring individual investigators to disclose potential conflicts of interest in cases under investigation and by ensuring that they do not participate in investigating those cases.
• Jurisdiction. An investigative agency’s jurisdiction over a particular case is determined primarily by which laws have been broken. This can especially be an issue in a federal system where elections may be held, sometimes concurrently, in national, regional and local jurisdictions.
• Qualified investigators. Investigators should be professionals who know how to investigate and gather evidence that will be protected and admissible in administrative proceedings or in court, and how to protect the rights of witnesses. Otherwise the investigation could be inadequate or the integrity of the investigation could be compromised.
• Effective procedures. The integrity problems discussed in this section can be prevented through development of effective operating procedures for investigation and information collection, with the aim of protecting/analyzing evidence and safeguarding the rights of witnesses and suspects.
• Respect for the political and civil rights of witnesses and suspects.  The ICCPR is the international legal baseline for the protection of civil and political as well as more general human rights.  With reference to the rights of persons involved in adjudicatory proceedings, the relevant comments of the UN Human Rights Committee should be taken into account.[1]
• Timing. The timing of an investigation may have a significant impact on its integrity. If it is initiated in the middle of an election campaign, the investigation may be used as political ammunition by some candidates. Not proceeding when an investigation is warranted, however, could undermine the integrity of the process. On balance, it may be said that an investigation should be undertaken promptly enough so that evidence and witnesses are still available, but without disturbing the electoral process.
• Voter Fraud.  Voter fraud investigations should be handled especially carefully, so as not to deter voters from exercising their right to vote freely.[2]