1357 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "Public security providers should operate in accordance with domestic law and international norms, and ensure that any necessary interventions are only required to achieve specific objectives of maintaining order based on a legitimate aim. Any restrictions during an electoral process should be based in law and be proportional to the objectives."
- "The use of force must be considered an exceptional measure, not to be executed arbitrarily. It should be proportionate to the threat, minimizing damage and injury, and used only to the extent required to achieve a legitimate objective. National legislation should clearly establish circumstances justifying its use. This includes providing adequate advance notice and using only the level of force needed to deal with various threats. Authorities should develop a range of responses to enable a differentiated and proportional use of force."
- "Public security providers should avoid the use of force in the event of unlawful though non-violent assemblies or limit its use to a minimum."
- "In dispersing violent assemblies and demonstrations, specific reference is made concerning firearms, i.e., that they may be used only when less dangerous measures prove ineffective and when there is an imminent threat of death or of serious injury. Firing indiscriminately into a violent crowd is never a legitimate or an acceptable method of dispersal."
- "The overall approach to electoral security should reflect the principle that the ultimate objective of ensuring a safe and secure electoral environment is not to impose limitations, but to ensure that fundamental rights are not undermined and that they can be freely exercised. Security concerns should not be misused as justification for unduly restricting freedoms."
- "State Parties acknowledge the need to eliminate discrimination against girls and young women according to obligations stipulated in various international, regional and national human rights conventions and instruments designed to protect and promote women's rights. In this regard, they shall: (...) b) Ensure that girls and young women are able to participate actively, equally and effectively with boys at all levels of social, educational, economic, political, cultural, civil life and leadership, as well as scientific endeavours. "
- "The collection of personal information should be limited to information that is relevant to the purposes of collection and any such information should be obtained by lawful and fair means, and where appropriate, with notice to, or consent of, the individual concerned."
- "Personal information collected should be used only to fulfill the purposes of collection and other compatible or related purposes except: a) with the consent of the individual whose personal information is collected; b) when necessary to provide a service or product requested by the individual; or, c) by the authority of law and other legal instruments, proclamations and pronouncements of legal effect."
- "Where appropriate, individuals should be provided with clear, prominent, easily understandable, accessible and affordable mechanisms to exercise choice in relation to the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information. "
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (b) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes shall, in accordance with Article 89(1), not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes (‘purpose limitation’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (c) adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (‘data minimisation’)."
- "Personal data shall be: (...) (e) kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed; personal data may be stored for longer periods insofar as the personal data will be processed solely for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) subject to implementation of the appropriate technical and organisational measures required by this Regulation in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the data subject (‘storage limitation’)."
- "Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which they are to be used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate, complete and kept up to date."
- "The General Assembly (...) 6. Calls upon all States: (...) (e) To provide individuals whose right to privacy has been violated by unlawful or arbitrary surveillance with access to an effective remedy, consistent with international human rights obligations."
- "The General Assembly (...) 7. Calls upon business enterprises: (...) (c) To implement administrative, technical and physical safeguards to ensure that data are processed lawfully and to ensure that such processing is limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes of the processing and that the legitimacy of such purposes, as well as the accuracy, integrity and confidentiality of the processing, is ensured."
- "There must be the possibility for meaningful verification of ballots cast electronically, such as that provided by a manual recount or end-to-end verifiability. (...) The verification mechanism must also fully guarantee the integrity of the results without compromising the secrecy of the vote. "
- "NVT systems are intended to fulfil the same functions as paper-based or mechanical systems and must, therefore, meet the same standards that apply to these systems."
- "Secrecy of the vote means that it should not be possible to associate a vote with a specific voter. This secrecy permits the voter to exercise her or his choice freely, without the potential for coercion, intimidation or vote-buying. NVT systems must be consistent with this requirement."
- "While this requirement has broader ramifications, one of the aspects of the principle of equality is that no voter will be able to cast more votes than another, nor will citizens be prevented from participating in voting. This means that NVT systems must prevent any person from casting more votes than is established by law and must prevent any votes from being subtracted from the system. (...) At the same time, the principle of equality means that voting should be accessible to all voters, especially for voters living within the country."
- "If NVT are used in polling stations, they should not be the exclusive method of voting, as less computer-literate voters may have problems operating NVT systems. In such cases, citizens should be provided with the option to use paper ballots if they wish."
- "While not all aspects of NVT can be directly observed, there are a number of activities that can be observed and which should be open to observers. These include not only the activities of election administrators and vendors in deploying, setting up and modifying the system, but also the activities of certification, testing and audit authorities."
- "The gradual introduction of NVT through a period of small, regionally limited pilot projects that include testing and gradually extend NVT use over several elections can serve to identify and correct problems and may help build public confidence in the technology."
- "Furthermore, decisions to use NVT should not be made immediately applicable to the next elections, in order to allow time for feasibility studies, procurement, planning, testing, evaluation, certification, voter education, public confidence building and implementation."
- "Another important factor to consider is the overall transparency of the selection process. The criteria used for selecting a particular type of system should be clearly established in advance of selection and made publicly available. This includes not only technical criteria but also purchasing and procurement criteria."
- "While vendors often have a role to play in maintaining and updating NVT, due to their technical knowledge, election officials are responsible for the conduct of elections and should have full authority, oversight and accountability over technicians."
- "NVT systems should be designed in such a way that they are easily understandable for voters and relatively simple to use."
- "Voters should receive clear feedback and prompts while interacting with the technology. The voter should be made aware of when the electronic ballot is about to be cast and should then receive confirmation that the vote has, indeed, been cast and that the voting process is over. "
- "All candidates or parties contesting the election should be given an equal amount of space on the electronic ballot and it should be possible to see all of the available choices at the same time before the ballot is cast. Ballots that exceed the size of the screen, thus requiring the voter to scroll or change screens to see the entire range of choices, have the potential to confuse voters and to create bias in favour of contestants that are displayed first."
- "The system should be designed to allow voters with disabilities to cast their ballots without assistance, to the extent possible."
- "The technology itself should be thoroughly tested prior to election day, but testing should also be conducted on the interaction of voters, election officials and observers with the technology."
- "Certification requirements or criteria should exist prior to the introduction of the NVT, rather than being tailored to match the NVT system. These requirements should be public and in accordance with relevant national legal provisions and international standards."
- "A government may allocate additional funds to programmes benefitting historically disadvantaged groups in order to enable such groups to enjoy their rights on a par with others in society."
- "Electoral constituencies should be drawn in a manner that preserves equality among voters. Thus, the law should require that constituencies be drawn in such a way that each constituency has approximately the same population size."
- "A general, automatic, indiscriminate restriction of the suffrage rights of all people convicted of a crime, regardless of the nature and degree of the crime, is an example of a restriction too broadly applied."
- "Further, in order to alleviate the effects of past discrimination and to enhance future participation, it is appropriate for the legal framework to include special electoral rules and voting arrangements for national minorities."
- "It may be appropriate to require political parties and other nominating organizations to put forward a minimum number of candidates of each gender, with reasonable chances to be elected."
- "The legal framework should prohibit the collection, use or dissemination of personal data or information in any manner for any purpose other than the exercise of suffrage rights. In particular, care should be given to provisions that relate to fingerprints, photographs and personal identification numbers, as well as to ethnicity or other factors that could lead to discrimination or place the voter at risk of personal harm."
- "An invalid signature should not invalidate other signatures or the signature list."
- "A credible process of signature verification would include the verification of all signatures submitted up to the point when the minimum number of verified signatures required for registration has been reached. Once the minimum number of signatures has been established, the political party or candidate should be registered."
- "Observers should be given unimpeded access to all levels of election administration at all times, effective access to other public offices with relevance to the election process, and the ability to meet with all political formations, the media, civil society and voters. The law should provide clear and precise provisions establishing the rights of observers to inspect documents, attend meetings and observe election activities at all levels, as well as to obtain copies of decisions, protocols, tabulations, minutes and other electoral documents, at all levels."
- "Although it is not possible for the legal framework to prevent violations of the principle of secrecy of the vote in postal voting, it is possible to provide for legal sanctions for violation of the secrecy requirement and to include other provisions to reduce the opportunity to undermine the integrity of the election through fraudulent postal voting."
- "It is difficult to justify the use of proxy voting, particularly where postal, early or mobile voting is available. Should a legal framework provide for proxy voting, then the reviewer of the legislation should point out the concerns this raises with regard to the principle of secrecy of the ballot and the potential it creates for abuse."
- "Personal data that are processed must be adequate, relevant, correct and, if necessary, up to date; all reasonable measures must be taken to complete, correct, block or erase data that are incomplete or incorrect."
- "The law must require that the appropriate election-administration body or court consider, determine and render a prompt decision on a complaint. A principle common to many legal systems is that “justice delayed is justice denied”."
- "Civil society is an essential component for the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law: therefore states should create and maintain a safe and enabling environment in which CSOs can operate free from hindrance and insecurity."
- "Governments must refrain from adopting measures that disproportionately target or burden civil society organizations (CSOs), such as imposing onerous vetting rules, procedures or other CSO-specific requirements not applied to the corporate sector."
- "The Human Rights Council (...) 1. Reaffirms that creating and maintaining a safe and enabling environment in which civil society can operate free from hindrance and insecurity assists States in fulfilling their existing international human rights obligations and commitments, without which equality, accountability and the rule of law are severely weakened, with implications at the national, regional and international levels."
- "The Human Rights Council (...) 5. Urges States to take all steps necessary to prevent threats, attacks, discrimination, arbitrary arrests and detention or other forms of harassment, reprisals and acts of intimidation against civil society actors, to investigate any such alleged acts, to ensure access to justice and accountability, and to end impunity where such violations and abuses have occurred, including by putting in place, and where necessary reviewing and amending, relevant laws, policies, institutions and mechanisms to create and maintain a safe and enabling environment in which civil society can operate free from hindrance, insecurity and reprisals."
- "A vibrant and free civic space with channels for safe and effective participation enables societies to be more peaceful and prosperous. The right to participate in the conduct of public affairs, protected and guaranteed by international law, is a cornerstone of civic space."
- "Threats and attacks against civil society actors and undue restrictions on public freedoms and rights are attacks against the values and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and are in direct violation of international norms and standards."