Summary
The rules should provide a mechanism for challenging and for invalidating all or part of the election results.
Obligations
Election Parts
Criteria
Quotes
- There shall be the possibility for a recount. Other features of the e-voting system that may influence the correctness of the result shall be verifiable.
- SADC Member States shall adhere to the following principles in the conduct of democratic elections: Challenge of the election results as provided for in the law of the land.
- The e-voting system shall not prevent the partial or complete re-run of an election or a referendum.
- Appeal bodies should have the authority to annul elections. There is consensus that the annulment should not necessarily affect the entire election. Instead, partial invalidation should be possible if irregularities affect a small area only. The central criterion for (partly or completely) annulling elections is, or should be, the question of whether irregularities may have affected the outcome, i.e. may have affected the allocation of mandates.
- The final results should not be published before all challenges of the preliminary results have been decided upon by the highest body of the judiciary or the constitutional court.
- The management of complaints and appeals is an essential part of democratic elections. The Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters underlines that irregularities in the election process must be open to challenge before an appeal body. Generally speaking, complaints and appeals may result in the partial or full invalidation of election results. They also may aim to correct problems and decisions even before the elections, especially in connection with the right to vote and voter registration, the right to stand for elections, the validity of candidatures, compliance with the rules governing the electoral campaign, access to the media, and party funding (CDL-AD(2002)023rev, para. 92).
- The appeal body must have authority to annul elections where irregularities may have affected the outcome. It must be possible to annul the entire election or merely the results for one constituency or one polling station.
- Good electoral practice suggests that the right to bring forward such challenges [appeals of election results] should be granted to all candidates and voters in the respective constituency, although a reasonable quorum may be imposed for appeals against election results filed by voters.
- Re-count procedures should be available in case of questionable results.
- First of all, funding must be transparent; such transparency is essential whatever the level of political and economic development of the country concerned. Transparency operates at two levels. The first concerns campaign funds, the details of which must be set out in a special set of carefully maintained accounts. In the event of significant deviations from the norm or if the statutory expenditure ceilings are exceeded, the election must be annulled. The second level involves monitoring the financial status of elected representatives before and after their term in office. A commission in charge of financial transparency takes formal note of the elected representatives’ statements as to their finances. The latter are confidential, but the records can, if necessary, be forwarded to the public prosecutor’s office.