The electoral authority has to ensure the formal and material requirements have been met. It has to act according to criteria that facilitate participation in the election and the correction of merely material mistakes, a pro electione principle that will reduce insurmountable defects to the minimum to facilitate participation and avoid discrediting of the results due to excessive inflexibility or formalism. The law must set exact dates for presentation, verification and decision. In the event of material mistakes or surmountable defects, short time limits necessary to resolve them have to be set (See Legislative Initiative: Direct or Indirect).
Once this term has expired, the electoral administration must announce publicly which candidacies are considered valid because they meet all the requirements for participation in the electoral process. The usual way is publication in the official gazette, but other ways are admissible, in accordance with local uses or possibilities (edicts published in the
press or posted in public places, etc.).
In addition to being able to appeal to the electoral administration itself, it should also be possible to appeal to ordinary or specialised courts or other independent organs that are concerned with the control of the process
(constitutional court, etc.), with very short time limits for their presentation and resolution.
It must not be forgotten, however, that certain countries make provision in their constitutions for electoral authorities that are so exceedingly independent that, in the face of their decisions, not even judicial appeal is envisaged, which evidently cannot always and in all circumstances be considered as a guarantee of the honesty of the process. Once the short time limit for possible appeals has passed and those which were made have been resolved, the candidacies have to be named formally.
