Observation
of elections in transitional or post-conflict democracies became increasingly
common during the 1990s. In the early 1990s it had something of the character
of a ‘guided tour’ rather than an assessment against agreed standards that
follows a solid methodology. During the 1990s, however, more precise standards
for elections were developed by regional organizations—including the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the European Union (EU), the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum and the
African Union (AU)—based on interpretations of international conventions and
declarations, and observation methodologies were developed by regional
organizations and by the United Nations (UN). As regards guidelines for election
observation, International IDEA together with the UN built on regional
standards and developed codes of conduct in the mid-1990s. More recently, the Carter Center,
the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD) and the US-based
National Democratic Institute brought together global and regional
organizations, culminating in the signature of a Declaration of Principles for
International Election Observation and Code of Conduct for International
Election Observers in October 2005.
International
election observation was initially conceived as necessary for a transitional
period until general trust in electoral processes
had increased and observation would no longer be needed. However, in the past
five years it has become more common to send international teams to assess or
observe even the elections of ‘old’ democracies. Such countries have developed
processes and legislation over a long period of time which are to a large
extent a result of tradition rather than an effort to meet objective standards.
While no formal global standards for electoral
processes exist, there is a broad common understanding of
what constitutes an acceptable election. This understanding has, however, been
developed on the basis of the needs of new democracies, implying standards
which are meant to create trust between parties who have had little reason to
trust each other in the past. Assessments of the electoral
processes of traditional democracies against such new
standards may therefore add to the electoral process, provide more comparative
data and prepare even old democracies for new challenges both in their
political environment and regarding new elections technology.
External
voting is implemented in many of the older democracies, and the security and
secrecy aspects have not been maintained to the same degree as they have for
personal voting at in-country in polling stations. The postal voting system
used in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2004—not only to accommodate external
voters—was a system based on trust, and it was not designed in such a way that
it could prevent wilful fraud or the perception of wilful fraud. In 2005 the
OSCE/ODIHR launched an election assessment mission to the UK where not
least the postal voting came under scrutiny.
However,
even though elections in established democracies are sometimes the target of
election observation missions, post-conflict countries and fledgling
democracies are still receiving most of the attention from observers. Many of
the challenges of observing external voting operations are linked to elections
in these countries. There is often pressure in these situations to observe the
operations due to the perception that the eligibility criteria can be easily
manipulated or twisted outside the host country.
