Election Administration

About the Book

The legal design is the key instrument in creating the substratum of good election administration. It is the legal design of the electoral framework that facilitates the application of best electoral practices and empowers electoral management bodies to create, maintain, and apply best electoral practices. It is the legal design that sets the tone for transparency, creates the tools for good management practices, and ensures the maintenance of oversight of a level playing field during election campaigns. The reform of election administration is often triggered by post-general elections’ performance audits to identify and remedy weaknesses observed at the last general election and enables the election environment to be resilient and experience continuous renewal through the legal reform process.

About the Author

Carl W. Dundas, LLB, LLM (Lon.), barrister-at-law (Gray’s Inn), is an election expert. Mr. Dundas has offered technical assistance in electoral matters in many countries, including Aceh (Indonesia), Antigua and Barbuda, Botswana, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. He has been a part of the commonwealth support team to Commonwealth Observer Groups to Bangladesh, Guyana, Kenya, Malaysia, Malawi, Pakistan, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. Mr. Dundas advised on election organization and management in Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, and Sierra Leone. Mr. Dundas led commonwealth secretariat’s electoral technical assistance missions to Guyana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. He carried assignments in areas, such as designing electoral frameworks for a neutral and impartial electoral management body, drafting of instruments for transition from military regimes to multiparty democracy, and he organized capacity-building seminars and workshops. He coordinated a post-election audit exercise in Botswana (2004) and advised on the implementation of post-election review recommendations in Nigeria (2003–04). Mr. Dundas advised on constitutional reform relating to fundamental provisions, dealing with electoral legislative schemes in many countries, including Guyana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania and advised on electoral legislation in Antigua and Barbuda, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Mr. Dundas led the support team to the commonwealth observer missions to elections in Malaysia (1990), Zambia (1991), Kenya (1992), Guyana (1992 and ’97), Malawi (1994), Mozambique (1994), Tanzania (1995), Zanzibar (Tanzania), and Trinidad and Tobago (2000). He also served as the technical adviser to the commonwealth preelection observation mission to Namibia in 1989 and to the Commonwealth Observer Group to South Africa in 1994. Mr. Dundas was chairman of the Electoral Boundary Delimitation Commission of the Cayman Islands in 2003 and 2010. As an independent electoral consultant from 2001 to 2006, Mr. Dundas advised many election management bodies (EMBs) on reform and modernization, including Aceh (Indonesia), Antigua and Barbuda, Botswana, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Lesotho, Liberia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. In 2006, Mr. Dundas became chief of party of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) Africa Union Support Program Union Support Program (funded by USAID) to advise the African Union on the establishment of a Democracy and Electoral Assistance Unit (DEAU). The DEAU was established in May 2008, and he remained as its adviser at the Africa Union in Addis Ababa until 2010.