Exploring Best Electoral Practices

About the Book

The family of best electoral practices is growing in most democracies. It can be found in mature and new, as well as in emerging democracies, perhaps more common in the former than in the latter two categories. The goal of best electoral practices is to improve election administration and services to the electorate. Best electoral practices are showing steady upward growth in emerging democracies and the potential for continued growth is positive. Widespread international interest in democratic elections and improved international and national election observation harmonization procedures will continue to assist in improving election administration. The use of electoral technologies and the notional entry into the age of digital democracy will undoubtedly aid and enhance best electoral practices aspirations in many emerging democracies.

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.