The Election law and regulatory provisions should include requirements for:
a) consistent verification of voters’ identification;
b) the names of candidates to be mentioned on the ballot for the single member constituency race;
c) allowing voters who have spoiled a ballot to be issued a new one;
d) enhanced reconciliation procedures at the end of polling, e.g. between the number of ballots used and the number of names marked in the voter list;
e) allowing party/candidate agents and accredited observers to enter comments in protocols at all stages of the voting and counting processes;
f) certified copies of polling station inventory forms and constituency results protocols to be distributed to all involved stakeholders, including party/candidate agents and accredited observers.

The existence of an independent judiciary is a general requirement for a democratic state. Steps should be taken to ensure and protect the independence of the judiciary. This would provide effective uncontested arbitration and oversight of election processes.

Requirements for candidacy for the National and Provincial Assemblies should be brought into line with international standards by removing the requirement for a bachelor degree or an equivalent educational certificate. Vague qualification and disqualification criteria of a moral nature should be revised.

Election offences should be reviewed to have more proportional penalties. It should not be an offence to encourage a boycott of an election, as the right to vote also includes the freedom not to vote and to express this view. Offences should be subject to investigation and prosecution with sanctions imposed in a consistent, proportional and transparent manner. Such cases should be heard in a timely manner in order to promote the deterrent effect of the law.

The law should be amended so that appointments to the positions of Chief Election Commissioner and ECP members are based on stakeholder consultation. For example, selections could be made by the National Assembly requiring a broad political consensus. Eligibility could be expanded beyond members of the superior judiciary. The law should stipulate the length of the term of office of ECP members.

The ECP should be supplied with the necessary professional staff and reorganized to ensure that it has the skills base and management structures to professionally provide required services. Separate departments dealing with legal issues and complaints, logistics/operations, training, and voter education should be established. Activities in ECP sub-federal offices should be fully subject to central management direction and oversight. Systems should be put in place to ensure sound inter-departmental communication and institutional cohesion. Any outsourcing of activities should be fully subject to ECP management and should be well documented in order to provide for sustainability.

The ECP should undertake continuous formal consultation with stakeholders, in particular with political parties and civil society. Institutionalized consultation mechanisms and stakeholder forums should be established down to constituency level.

The appointment of polling staff should be based on an open system for nominations with opportunity for objections. In order to increase confidence in the process, consideration should be given to appointments being open to others in addition to state employees, and the ECP budget should be adjusted accordingly.

The ECP should develop transparency in all of its operations (as acknowledged as an essential part of democratic development in UN General Assembly resolution on promoting and consolidating democracy). In particular:
(i) The ECP should formalise and publicise a schedule of its meetings and all resulting decisions should be immediately publicly available.
(ii) All internal instructions issued should be immediately publicly available.
(iii) Information from provinces, districts and constituencies should be centrally gathered and made publicly available on the internet as well as at the local level (for example complaints lodged, numbers of postal ballot applications, polling station locations, polling station results).
(iv) The ECP website should be further developed and kept fully up-to-date.

The ECP should ensure agent and observer scrutiny is provided for by issuing specific regulations and guidelines, and through training of ECP staff. Accreditation should be easily available to observers. Regular consultation with observer groups should be undertaken by the ECP.

The law should be amended to require detailed polling station results to be swiftly displayed at the constituency and on the internet. All polling station results should be submitted to the ECP for immediate publication on the official website.

The ECP should produce an accurate and complete electoral roll, and consider the possibility of this being subject to continuous updating. The ECP should work with National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to ensure incorporation of any entries not captured through its own enumeration (either from a new enumeration or the one undertaken for the Electoral Roll 07). The data captured should be subject to a comprehensive nationwide check for duplicates.

The ECP should ensure that the display period is well publicised, that the draft electoral roll is available at multiple sites within a constituency, and that the process of corrections is accessible and efficient.

The ECP should make strenuous efforts to secure enrolment by 18 year olds.

During the next delimitation exercise, the ECP should ensure that newly delimited constituencies are approximately equal in size, in order to uphold the principle of equal suffrage.

The ECP should provide all voters with clear information on their individual registration details, including electoral roll serial number, and allocated polling station and its location. Parties should not be relied upon to provide such basic information.

All Returning Officers and polling staff, including reserves, should be fully trained by in-house trainers with user-friendly manuals.

Postal voting procedures and practices should be reviewed to promote uptake of this provision by those eligible.

Compilation and consolidation should be merged into one process. This would require the validity of ballots to be determined by presiding officers during the count at the polling station, and the deadline for receipt of postal ballots to be the scheduled for the close of polling on election day (for immediate inclusion in the constituency aggregation on election night).

The ECP should take active steps to address participation by people traditionally marginalised in the process, for example, women, the disabled, internally displaced persons and nomadic people. This should include an outreach programme for voter registration, due consideration in polling station identification, and consideration of extended use of postal balloting.

A clear structure should be established so that complaints are first filed administratively to the ECP, and upon exhaustion or dissatisfaction, complainants may then appeal to the courts.

Full records of complaints, responses, decisions and outcomes should be made available by the ECP for immediate scrutiny.

Election appeals (“petitions”) to tribunals or superior courts should be dealt with in a timely manner in order to provide the possibility of effective remedy. A review should be made of the current timetable, with consideration given to reducing the timeframes involved for petitions, in order to avoid returned candidates loosing their seats after a prolonged period in office. The timetable for election petitions challenging election results should be strictly adhered to. Court rules should be amended accordingly, and tribunals and courts should be resourced appropriately.

The category of those permitted to file election petitions should be expanded, to include political parties, civil society organisations and voters.

There should be a review of the necessity and effectiveness of the structure of a caretaker government. The mandate, functioning and neutrality of any future caretaker government should be more clearly defined in law. Appointment of caretaker positions should be by consensus and should be open to objection. In no circumstance should caretaker officials be involved in campaign activities.