The Electoral Knowledge Network typically defines two categories of election observation. First, short-term observation (STO), generally encompassing election climate, preceding days, voting day, and the count. Second, long-term monitoring (LTO) involves assessing holistically the entire election process, including consolidation of results. It is an intensive assignment where teamwork is essential and yet many of the people who seek to do this work have had little experience of such joint efforts. This article explores the author’s personal experiences with being an election observer and offers some tips and reflections for those who may want to do this work themselves.
Every stage of potential recruitment is competitive but like every career path, there are ways to success. As for the rewards, these are professionally fulfilling. Financially, the pay for short and long-term observers will vary greatly from country to country. At the Short-term (STO) or Long-term (LTO) level, you could easily find yourself getting only basic expenses while you are teamed with someone from a country that pays its observers a full salary. At the worst end of the scale, there are countries who only refund incurred expenses after the event. I have noticed it is sometimes a bone of contention where the financial package offered from country to country differs so much between the observer team. One STO might be accounting for every basic expense and getting reimbursed later, while the team partner has a generous financial package for deployment and is also getting a full salary and benefits based on the level of seniority of the last post served. This is a recipe for conflict but is inevitable due to the way observer missions are comprised. For the most part, countries are asked to supply observers and use their own country formula for remuneration. Even in EU missions, where everyone gets the same per diem of expenses, some observers may also get a salary from their own government, in addition.
Professionally-run elections that are transparent and give all individuals or parties an equal chance are at the heart of modern democracy. These days international election observers are wary of the words “free and fair” as it is based on too many assumptions that fly in the face of practical realities. You could have had the most professionally-executed vote in many countries but the political system itself is so skewed or (frankly) undemocratic – there is no genuine opposition. What the state party or long-time dictator tells you is “free and fair” could have the best electoral administration in the world and still have no genuine democracy. In short, the process of election of the one-party state could be so precise, every vote is accounted for, and the political system itself effectively neutralizes genuine opposition. The modern dictator could pay for the most sophisticated polling system in the world but if there is no genuine opposition – all that election administration is useless. The equipment is impressive, the tabulations awesome and rapid if not instantaneous, but without a genuinely democratic political landscape to match the technicalities of the election administration, we might as well just have state-elected officials.
The modern International Election Observer is much more focused on whether a “level playing field” (with useful democratic components) exists to promote multi-party or multi-candidate democracy and allow genuine freedom of choice. That presupposes an enormous amount of groundwork to ensure popular confidence that there is democracy, to encourage political plurality and create a genuine contest where it is possible for the popular vote to make a difference. Thus, professional international election observation is multi-faceted and multi-layered, and based on complex and continuously evolving election administration methodologies. Ideally, the operations of large international election observation organizations are centered on the best principles of election administration. The field operations will also continuously evolve to allow the organization to achieve the best possible job in capturing the performance of the election administration. By that I mean we have been on a journey from simple paper notebooks with narrative comments, to paper election observation questionnaires, to these questionnaires being captured by the use of electronic transmitting pens (combined with smartphones) to computer-tablets and finally to reporting applications based around mobile phone applications. Communication security has also improved.
Modern election observation will normally involve a careful arrangement of questions that will allow, as far as possible, a 360-degree view of the entire election process. It is also likely to involve a combination of long-term observation of the pre-election and post-election process and more intensive, locally-based focus on the election week itself. These efforts are likely to concentrate on immediate pre-election planning in a region, local polling, and tabulation, and finally consolidation of results at a district and local level. It also generally means that a country receiving an international election observation mission should be genuinely open. For example, it should possess an open media and journalistic community who can report untrammelled on all these events without fear of the secret police or social censure. When I first started this work in 1984, there were plenty of elections but many of them were (frankly) non-contests in which the party or president was at the least a “sure thing” or even worse, the only hat in the ring. Discreetly observers would be followed everywhere by intelligence operatives. Now elections are so prolific it was reported that in 2024 there were the largest volume of national and local elections ever seen in the history of elections. Our continuously evolving language in describing these elections is at the heart of the reportage of an international election observer.
It is worth noting that many of the concepts we associate with modern democracy have a rich and ancient history. Take for example medieval Venice where elections to appoint the Doge, the supreme leader of the Venetian Merchants Court, invented the ballot. These first ballots were metal balls, not paper votes. What made them unique and effective was that they fitted covertly into metal boxes which allowed no-one to know how the voter had voted – one of the first large-scale examples of voter secrecy.
The concept of international election observer has been with us now in a serious way for several decades, but if truth were told, it too is almost as old as electoral democracy itself. No sooner had we introduced what we hoped to persuade our public and the international community as democratic elections than each country began to compare itself with others. It is almost as old as the concept of election itself. When I first started as an international election observer in 1984, the reporting methodology was piecemeal if not quaint by today’s standards. Travelling off to an exotic island-state for the Commonwealth Secretariat, I was given a note-book and told to write any observations down to inform the debriefing meeting which would be held on return in the famous Locarno Room of the UK Foreign Office. It was quite ceremonial compared to the technical methodologies today. Since then, there has been an enormous professionalization in both the methodologies and principles of international election observation, the world over. Practically every region of the world has its own election observation framework (EU, OSCE, OAS etc.) and numerous internationally binding conferences have formulated a set of standards for international election observation.
Almost all Foreign Ministries across the world have a desk devoted to international election observation. This may he known as a focal point who will organize either a roster of willing election observers from suitably qualified people or circulate calls from relevant bodies or for bilateral missions organized by the individual country e.g. a colonial country may well assist its former colony by assisting in the observation of postcolonial elections. The Organisation for Security & Cooperation OSCE and European Union (EU) are the two largest programmatic organizers of election observations missions. For the OSCE, it is within the OSCE countries, and the delivery is made by an OSCE entity called the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). For the EU, the landscape is much wider and follows an invitation from the country for the EU to assist and/or observe elections. EU missions may theoretically take place across the world, (but in practice most are in Africa, Asia, and Latin America). To serve on OSCE or EU missions you must also be registered with an UpToDate profile on their databases. Both organizations have rigorous training and any deployment with either organization presupposes successful certification on the OSCE basic training course. This is considered mandatory.
There are a host of other trainings conducted by the OSCE, EU, and national providers, all of which will enhance your potential to be selected by the focal point of your country and eventually recruited onto a mission. Selection onto EU missions is generally tougher as one of their missions nowadays typically will involve only a few volunteers from each member state. Some of the OSCE missions are much bigger, so the best place to start, and service on an OSCE mission is more-or-less necessary to be considered for an EU mission.
Whatever organization an Observer may serve with nowadays contain essentially three types of openings. Short-term observer (STO) between a week and two weeks normally. Previously, medium-term (MTO) openings offered several weeks but these have more-or-less disappeared. However, with some organizations, an STO mission is more like medium-term. Then there are Long-Term Observers (LTOs) deployed for about two months or more. Especially if the election requires a second round, you could find yourself three months in the field. Then there are core team posts of different kinds, both for election missions that have STOs or LTOs and also separate election missions we might summarize as “limited missions” where there are only LTOs and core staff or just core staff. Such “core-staff-only” missions include the preliminary mission which decides what the organization is going to do in the future election observation, or re-visits the observation with the delivery of the mission report follow-up. Core-team posts are generally slightly longer than LTO missions, but there are also core-team short assignments.
The core staff position is the highest (and hardest) to achieve and would normally presuppose years of experience and relevant qualifications in an area like political science, law, election administration, IR, diplomacy, statistics, or possibly logistics. The most senior core staff will be the Head of mission (in the EU and OSCE, this is normally a senior politician and indeed in the EU will be a serving MEP). There will be a deputy, and depending on the size and scope of the mission many specialist roles like election advisor; perhaps a human rights and/or gender adviser and staff involved in the coordination of the observers. All of these positions are “open-recruitment” to the sending organizations (e.g. OSCE, EU, or Carter Center etc.) and are the most highly competitive.
The United Nations (UN) has been a big driver in the setting of standards for international election observation. It is also one of the major organizations assisting countries in the administration of their elections to the highest possible standards. The UN itself no longer observes elections for, as the reader might surmise, it would be a conflict of interest to help administer and then also try to independently monitor elections. This would be a bit like marking your own homework. There are however, occasionally non-observer roles open for large UN mission operations which include democratic elections. These might include election administration technical advice, and in the past even election supervisor jobs.
There are many others international organizations also involved in election observation. One thinks in particular of the Carter Center, established by the late President Jimmy Carter, which has a large election observations program. In the USA both the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the National Republican Institute (NRI) recruit international observers for its overseas missions. There are a range of country-specific recruitment opportunities too with regional political organizations or international NGOs. There are also many other regional-bodies like the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Organisation of African States (OAS), and the Asian Observer’s Network (ANFREL). There are also numerous smaller organizations that set up international and bi-lateral observation missions whether as projects associated with particular countries, universities, or NGO programs.
In the past two decades there has also emerged a proliferation of domestic observer organizations who seek volunteers for national election observation projects. In the UK (for example), there is Democracy Volunteers. Sadly, there has also emerged a separate phenomenon of fake election observers. Generally, they try to recruit (mostly) unwitting politicians who may not always realize ulterior motives or agenda. Common-sense might also make the potential recruit ponder if they are being invited to be an election observer for one of the lesser-known observer organizations or for a particular country, could there be an alternative motive in motion? One might be surprised by the number of international officials who have made the apparent mistake of accepting invitations which turn out to be less than objective.
What makes a good candidate for international election observation? Frankly, many countries do not insist on any
