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).