Electoral authorities are empowered to issue executive orders aimed at
regulating electoral issues. International agreements between electoral authorities
(whether administrative or judicial) of different countries have been very
useful to establish international cooperation and shared academic, publishing
or research projects, all of which have been undertaken through high-profile
conferences, seminars, congresses, workshops and publications related to
electoral topics.
International agreements signed by electoral authorities do not have the
same legal status as judicial resolutions. However, they are also important
because they do bind the signing countries in a formal way. Once an electoral
agreement has been reached, rights and duties are produced and common efforts
should be performed to tackle the agreement’s objectives. International
agreements (including non-electoral agreements) can be seen as a particular way
to create electoral law within a general framework demanding global solutions
for global problems.
International agreements must be signed by authorities authorized to do so.
They must also be in line with preexisting legal rules. Unconstitutional or
illegal agreements are all null and void. Agreements violating the rules set down
in other agreements have to be considered null and void as well.
In federal systems, electoral agreements have been reached by authorities
of different levels (the federation, the state authorities and the
municipalities) and have been useful to solve electoral issues involving them
(especially managerial issues) in a cooperative way. Such agreements have
benefited electoral know-how and efficiency including the following topics:
management, electoral training, the common use of the voters’ registry and
voting identification (all of which, expensive, huge and technologically
complex matters, are commonly developed by federal electoral agencies and
contractually transmitted to local agencies which apply them in local
elections).
