 Hello and welcome to this session. We will start now. It is on the hour. A warm welcome to this, one of many events that are being held in conjunction with the Democracy Forum that will feed into the summit of democracy later this week. I'm coming to you from Stockholm, Sweden. It's the week of the Nobel Prize, so it's dark outside but beautifully lit up the buildings for the ceremonies. Today, this event that you are coming to is a really special one. It focuses on elections and I think elections are on our minds no matter where you're joining us from. I know we have a global audience out there but each of you in your own way are touched by elections and I really want to welcome you to this session. This particular session is structured around a study that came out this week, a very fresh study that was commissioned by the Government of Sweden. It looks like this, the physical copy. It's called Supporting Elections Effectively Principles and Practice of Electoral Assistance and it can be found on the website eva.se. So, eva is a government agency that works with development policy eva.se. So, that's where you'll find this report. And the two themes that this panel will pick up are, firstly, that elections are just getting harder. And we'll hear about that, how that plays out on the ground. But secondly, there is a kind of infrastructure or there are basics that we can put in place to support those that are on the front lines. And so we'll also explore what that looks like in practice or on the ground. And between these two, we'll paint a picture that we would like to feed as recommendations to the summits of democracies. And with us on this journey, I am so pleased to have some of the real leaders in the field who are living and breathing, dealing with the challenges, experiencing these challenges, but also finding innovative ways or thoughtful ways to emerge for them or to deal with them. I should also say that in the audience today or those of you who have joined us today, we have many, many, many of the practitioners who gave their voice to this study. And I want to thank them for that. And I hope that you will recognize your reflections and your insights in the conversation that we have today. That is what will frame the conversation that we're having today, but also in the recommendations that we put forward. I do want to mention that the recommendations are also going directly to the summit via other channels, via government channels. So there's two ways in which your work on this study will feed in. So to give a human face to this idea of protecting elections, but also the infrastructure that's needed to support those on the front lines, I am so pleased to present to you, well, needs no presentation to those in the elections community, but Irene Hajiabdic, she has been working with elections and she serves at the election commissioner at the moment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but she's been there for the long haul from the war and onwards. She also serves on the board of IFAS. And so her dual global and practical will really help us through this event today. We also have directly from the Sarawak elections, state elections today, Zoe Randawa. She is election commissioner in Malaysia, one of the election commissioners. And she also comes from civil society and has been part of Malaysia's very interesting transition at the moment and her insights will be really helpful for us. Amber McReynolds will need no introduction for those of you in the US, but for a global audience, you should know that she is both an election administrator in her background with Denver as her anchor, but also a leading advocate and expert on voting at home methods and an advisor to many of the other states and jurisdictions in the United States. And she also sits on the board of the United States Postal Service and really needing no introduction is Avery Davis Roberts of the Carter Center, but many of you will know her as the architect behind many of the support systems that we do have in elections right now, both the codifying of the normative frameworks around elections in the form of international obligations, but also as one of the founders of the Declaration of Principles community of election observation. I'm so pleased to have you all with us. I also want to introduce, coming to us from the Alliance for Securing Democracy, German Marshall Fund is David Levine and he's going to tie this conversation together in a way that is pithy and presentable to the summit of democracy. So he'll try to do that at the end. If you have questions, you can put them in. There's a question and answer function in the Webex and my colleague David Towers will collect them. And if we have time at the end, we'll address those. Otherwise, we'll take them into consideration for the future. Right, with that introduction, I will get us started with the first thing we have. Now I mentioned our study, but I should say it isn't just our study that points out that elections are getting harder. I want to highly recommend a few others. One is the materials that are on the Alliance for Securing Democracy site, one of them especially done together with IFIS, the International Foundation for Election Systems on cyber attacks, foreign interference and digital infrastructure. But also an excellent report from IFIS about overcoming challenges in post-conflict areas what it is like to be on the front lines in post-conflict areas now compared to earlier. But interestingly, our global state of democracy which was launched in Washington just about an hour or so ago and globally about a week ago, it points out that these issues of protecting elections are no longer about post-conflict areas. They really are about all of us globally, even in those democracies that saw themselves as stable. But I'd like to start with you, Irina, because you've been part of, you've seen this arc. So these reports are saying that it's getting harder now, but what is it that's getting harder? And with your experience coming out of a war and to this point now, what are you seeing on the ground in your work and also in your work with IFIS? Irina. Thank you, Therese. It's a great pleasure to be a member of this panel. We who are election practitioners, who are members of election management bodies, we all would like to conduct legitimate elections without fraud, without mistrust, but it is really so difficult to work in the best interest of our voters, because as you mentioned, the time is getting worse and worse and democracy is declining and election management bodies could contribute to democracy, but it's no easy time for them. So that's the moment when international election assistance organization can step in. That happened after the war in my country. The problem is that we even now face these traditional challenges like political pressure on electoral management body members, lack of sufficient budget, election violence as well, and we are getting new challenges, sometimes completely unknown, unexpected challenges. So let me speak a little bit about this period after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's especially difficult and challenging in transition countries and especially in post-conflict countries. So after the war in my country, 1996, till almost 2002, our main goal, and I can speak freely about that period, because I was engaged as an employee of international organization or as seen in my country, our main goal is just to hold elections, to hold elections, and just to finalize them, to complete them. We didn't think about any kind of democratic standards improvements because we face the lack of infrastructure, the lack of human capital, we face the security threats, and it was extremely difficult. Finally, in 2001, when we got first Bosnia and Herzegovina election law and first state election commission, we kept international members in the commission to assist us till 2006. So in 2006, when we consolidated our election management body, we got a chance to think about some improvements. And in 2006, we introduced a new modality for our water registration system, and we transferred it from active registration to the passive registration system. And this really resulted in a more accurate water list. But it is so difficult to maintain the high accuracy of the water list. Even if they are perfect with massive introduction of new technologies, and you could see in some countries that new technologies were introduced to check water identity, and if this technology is not properly tested, even perfect water lists were under criticism. So now, with all these traditional challenges, we have new technologies, cybersecurity threats, we don't know a lot about that at all. We are all working from home, and we don't know how that can jeopardize our sensitive election operations. We had this pandemic, for example, for us in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main issue was shall we help or shall we postpone the elections? The problem was that we didn't have precise legislation in that sense. So all this is somehow the big issue for many, I mean electoral management bodies. If we do not get proper precise legislation, if we do not know what to expect, we will actually lose the quality that we reached so far, and we will go back. So we really need to think about new set of, let's say, especially design capacity building activities that should support not just EMBs in transitional countries, but I think all EMBs, because I don't see any election management body at the moment in the world that is on the safe side. Thank you, Irina. That was a gorgeous overview of 20 years of challenges. And Amber, I'm going to ask you if any of this resonates with you. So Irina spoke about, for example, that in the early days, it was really just about delivery, getting an election out the door, and you kind of thought that was enough. And now these compounding difficulties, it's not only that you have to introduce an accurate voters list, but that has to be a trusted list. So this idea of delivery, but also perception about if that is okay. And she also spoke about if policy makers understanding the importance of certain enabling legislation for the proper elections to be held then afterwards. So this working with policy makers so that they also understand what needs to happen. Does any of this resonate with you as you, with your familiarity with how election authorities are dealing with the repercussions from last year and so forth? Ben, I know that many are thinking about reform. How does this resonate for you, Amber? It does very much resonate. And I would say that what we've seen in the United States over the last few decades is we elections used to be kind of this administrative public service that really was largely out of the news that most people didn't pay much attention to. It was sort of the normal course of the election process. And there's been a few things that have really compounded election administration in the United States. And even if we look back to the 2000 presidential election and the aftermath of Florida and then the addition of the Help America Vote Act and advancements in technology and changes over time, election policy and sort of in the aftermath of Florida 2000 became very reactionary in a lot of ways. And it sort of moved away from this very administrative kind of fly under the radar sort of system. And so that's compounded things over time. We also in the United States have done a very poor job of investing consistently in our elections infrastructure that is very much public infrastructure. And we've kind of, I feel like in the United States, but also around the world in a lot of ways, elections have always been treated as this sort of infrastructure that sits over here. And it isn't in the conversations all the time about the public infrastructure that's required to serve citizens across the board. And it really should be. It needs to be part of that infrastructure. Also, I would add that technology has obviously changed, social media has changed, the 24 hour news cycle, all these things have compounded how elections are run and how they're talked about and the communication around them. And largely the most people, including most state legislators and most members of Congress have never toured an election office. They often don't actually understand the mechanics of an election. So when you have sort of these political folks weighing in on these very detailed issues, even though they don't necessarily understand the mechanics behind the scenes, it can further complicate issues around the perception of elections and trust in elections. And I would finally sort of say that a lot of times you'll hear people talk about voting rights or election integrity or election security or voting access. And what I like to use an acronym called faster and our election policy and processes need to be about a set of values that the acronym for it, I call it is faster, but it's fairness, accessibility, security, transparency, equity and reliability. All those values have to be balanced equally. And what we're seeing right now in the United States is politicians and extreme type folks picking and choosing from those values and sort of, and not considering all of them equally in the delivery of democracy in our country. And I would also add that that really is about, this is all about improving our civic health, not just improving the voting experience, not just protecting voters rights, not just improving accessibility, but really how we can come together and improve our civic health, because this very much is a question of civic health. When we look at the United States in terms of turnout, some states perform at a 25 to even 30 point higher turnout, and that very much is driven by the policies on the books. And then in the highest turnout election that we've had in a long period of time, 80 million people did not vote. Our national turnout average was 66%. And that means that 80 million of our eligible citizens in the United States did not participate. And they cited a barrier or they cited a lack of interest or a lack of trust in the process. And so all those things are compounding to create a very difficult environment for the people on the front lines that are delivering what should be a very straightforward public service and bad actors and attacks and conspiracies. All of this is compounding the jobs they do as public servants, guarding our democracy, which is really what their roles are at the local level. It was a gorgeous summary and overview, Amber. And what I'm hearing you saying and what I'm hearing also elsewhere is that this what you called out of the radar or this taken for grantedness is just no longer the case. And in some ways that could be a good thing. It could be a rethinking or a reinvestment as you were talking about this public infrastructure that that attention gets paid to it. And maybe we need to rethink, we need to look at our values. And you had a gorgeous acronym the faster for the different values. And that conversation can be perhaps one that really reinvigorates the sense of elections as being a societal endeavor, or as you said, civic using the words civic health. But the other part is what I'm hearing from you is of this not taken for grantedness or this spotlight is that it's becoming a contested space where people are picking or choosing or picking small things and maybe undermining deliberately. And perhaps part of the infrastructure is the capacity or the skill sets amongst our frontline people to be able to handle their ordinary jobs as being a contested space all of a sudden and supporting them with those skill sets could be one of the infrastructure things that we think about moving forward. Thank you so much, Amber. And Zoe, does this resonate with you at all? And it's your perspective is very interesting because you moved from civil society where it's easy sometimes from civil society to look and go, Hey, you guys, and then suddenly there you are in the middle of it. And so that kind of dual way of looking at it must be something that you're experiencing right now, as well as these these transitions in Malaysia. But I'd love to hear your thoughts and I should say that you're coming directly from elections today. Yes. Both the panelists, what what they've touched on resonates very strongly with me, especially what Amber said about about how dealing with authorities that maybe don't understand the nitty-gritty of elections. I think, especially in the last two years in the pandemic in Malaysia, when I joined the Election Commission from civil society, we were just sort of finding our feet and trying to make the Election Commission and a credible trustworthy body again. And then when the pandemic hit, it exposed a lot of existing shortcomings that just set us back a lot further in terms of credibility. And I think I'm going to give two examples of this that just really has stuck out, especially in the last couple of months with state elections that we've been having. One is the idea of these authorities coming in that maybe aren't election experts that aren't, that don't know the legal framework, that don't know what the situation is on the ground. And they have the legal authority under the current framework to make decisions based on public health or make decisions based on ideas of public security, which then can have repercussions for the credibility of the election authorities and the Election Commission, because obviously it has quite a big impact on our work. So the example was in Sabah last year, we had a state election in one of our states in Sabah, and that state election in the middle of the year was the trigger point for the third wave of the COVID pandemic here in Malaysia. It was seen basically this state election was seen as the cause of the third wave. So elections then had this big fear factor around it. And the idea of elections even now in our countries, it's met with such resistance because it was seen as the one factor that caused this enormous outbreak of COVID. So it also means that the health authorities see elections as an enormous threat. So when, now that we are finally having elections again, now that we're having them, there is so much concern on the part of health authorities over the elections, and especially over campaigning, that they want to, and understandably, they're trying to step in to set specific restrictions and guidelines over campaign activities. The problem there is they do not necessarily know election laws, they don't necessarily know election norms, what happens on the ground during elections, what is actually feasible and what is not feasible. And they're also often, well, in Malaysia especially, they come under the Ministry of Health, which is not an independent body. So there is a lot of criticism of bias there. So at the end of the day, when the election commission tries to get involved in this, in terms of providing our expertise, providing our insights into what will work and whatnot, it then looks like we are almost complicit in what is being criticised as a very biased and basically anti-democratic in some ways, the criticism would be that it's an anti-democratic process, these restrictions coming in. But I say this is actually, the pandemic exposed these shortcomings, but it was a problem when we started and it just shows because we've had issues in the past with authorities, different authorities that have roles to play under our legal framework that are not necessarily independent or competent authorities playing a big role in our elections. So when the pandemic came along, it just exacerbated all of these problems that shows such an urgent need to look into having independent bodies controlling and in charge of all aspects of elections in a way. The other one I'll just quickly touch on is the idea that at the moment that we've had of in-person voting. The pandemic has pushed the idea of alternatives to in-person voting into the forefront. So there's, especially now you mentioned that just come from the state elections in Sarawak, because Sarawak is a Borneo state, it costs a lot to fly over there for a lot of Sarawakian voters that live or work in West Malaysia or study here. So the cost of travelling there, especially now in the pandemic and the risks of travel during the pandemic has put a lot of demands to introduce either postal voting or remote voting. But then obviously there's the issues that we have to consider of security and efficiency and transparency. And we made the decision not to introduce postal voting, but of course that had big implications and did have quite a big hit on our credibility as well. So yes, I think that as it stands, the challenges that Malaysia is facing on their ground, just the pandemic has thrown it all into the open and it just shows the urgency and the need to really, you know, as a global community, look at how we can deal with unforeseen challenges. Oh, you've touched on so much Zoe and I really, I feel you there and your experiences are not unusual globally, but living and breathing it is hard. So so many of the things that you're saying. One is that what we've seen, what we've all seen is that the pandemic has both provided opportunities for change or for accelerating trends that were already underway, for example, towards alternative voting arrangements, but also have exposed shortcomings that maybe to pick up on Amber's point a little bit earlier before maybe we're a little bit under the radar and so forth and now are really coming to the fore. And one of those which you've really touched on Zoe was this idea of interagency cooperation or kind of trying to figure out what together is the right pathway forward, which really speaks to communication channels and also a sense of societal norms like where are we on the balance with all of this and what we've seen globally is that those who navigated the pandemic well were the ones who were able to have those civil conversations based on the needs of the citizens and that's not necessarily easy, but when it was possible to get legislators on board health authorities and election authorities in the same room towards the same goal, you could kind of come up with something and but those things had to be fast and that's hard with existing legislation. So nothing about what you're describing was easy but also gosh the timing of this, you know, Malaysia, you know, so many, so hopeful and yet realizing how difficult it can be when it gets to the nitty gritty of putting it down on the ground. The other thing I want to touch on and what you said, which really points to one of the things that is the challenge that we're seeing all over the place and Amber touched on it as well as did Irena and that is that ordinary election administration decisions are seen in a political way. So you were saying that health measures that were being put in, whether they are or aren't, are seen as biased because any decision will affect somebody in some way or be perceived that way and I think that's really what we're dealing with now and speaks to, yeah, elections perhaps being a relational kind of work as well as an operational kind of work. So I'm, yeah, it isn't easy but it's, we are trying pulling this all together and I think rather than trying to do that myself, I'm going to hand over to Avery because you've got this global perspective and I have a sense that you're, that what you've heard resonates with what you are seeing globally but is there anything, yeah, how do you see it and is there anything that we've missed in terms of the challenges facing election administrators? Thanks, Cheris. No, I mean I think that a lot of the sort of themes and threads that I had been thinking about have sort of been already articulated a little bit but I might just pull on a few of them and elaborate them a little bit more and I want to actually just start by taking a step back to sort of think about, you know, election's role in democracy. I was looking just the other day at the 2021 perceptions of democracy survey and in there it was sort of talking about how, you know, there's a gap between how people feel about democracy and how they feel or their feelings about whether or not they are actually experiencing democracy. So I think something like 81 percent of people in the countries, the 53 countries surveyed felt that democracy was really important but they also, across the board but to varying degrees, depending on a country, really felt that democracy was not being delivered to them and so I think, you know, when we think about this gap between what democracy means to people in theory and what it means in practice, it really has an impact on how they feel about elections and sort of how they, since elections are really the most tangible way for most people to think about participation and think about what democracy means for them. Most people don't make the connection between like going to get your driver's license and democracy. They think about elections, right? So there's a definite relationship, I think, between these things. I think just to sort of pull on the thread around sort of politicization of election administration, I think this is a huge, huge issue and it sort of ties back to some of the other comments about sort of political interference, honestly, in an election administration that, you know, once aspects of election administration are politicized in a highly polarized political environment, it becomes a justification for increased political interference in the process. We're certainly seeing that in the United States, but we've seen it in many other countries too, and I think that it's just something that is rising, bubbling to the top right now in a lot of places. We've talked a little bit about foreign interference, cyber security, obviously this sort of threatens the integrity of the process, you know, it's sort of maybe around manipulation to have a specific outcome in an election, but it can also just be sort of a process that's trying to just disrupt the election process, and I think that that is something that we're seeing as a global trend that is quite concerning. Disinformation, misinformation, obviously sort of exacerbating all of these issues that have been long-standing issues, making them more severe and sort of having more, I guess, quicker conflagrations around issues that have been long-standing issues. And we're seeing a kind of to get to this issue of trust that I think has been sort of in all of the comments. Disinformation, misinformation is clearly undermining trust in election outcomes, undermining trust in elections as an institution and electoral institutions, the institutions that administer the elections, and the people who are there as front-line workers, as Amber and Aina and Zoe were mentioning, you know, the sort of the human element of election officials, but also, you know, the Carter Center obviously does a lot of election observation. We're seeing that it's undermining trust in election observation. We're seeing more threats, hate speech, bad behavior that is maybe sort of somehow more acceptable online, even though it should not be acceptable online, but behavior that happens online is now transferring into real life people, saying terrible things, making terrible threats, doing bad things in the context of elections in ways they think that we've never seen before. And I know that this is front of mind for many people who have been thinking about the situation in the United States. Just a couple of other things, violence against women is something that I think we're seeing kind of when we step back from an observation kind of perspective, violence against politically active women, so female candidates, voters, election officials, we're seeing that there are a lot of ways that gendered violence is really being used to suppress women's participation in election processes. That's something that we've been thinking about a lot at the Carter Center, but also you and women, a number of organizations are sort of trying to create networks around that, IFES, NDI and others. And then sort of just kind of picking up the thread on COVID. I want to tie it, I think, a little bit to climate change issues also. We talked a little bit about the way that COVID has made us sort of have to be flexible, think differently about how we administer elections. There's been in some cases postponement of elections, cancellation of elections, if this is going to be something that continues either because of public health crises, because we will see more of those with climate change or because of severe weather incidents that may mean that elections have to be postponed in some part of a country or the entire country or all kinds of things that can come up with climate change related extreme weather events. And our systems and infrastructure around laws and practice haven't necessarily caught up with that yet. We're going to find ourselves in situations where we're dealing with sort of an emergency and we might not have the tools at hand immediately to deal with them. So I think something we've been thinking about is how can we build that infrastructure now so that we are ready and prepared? And obviously climate change is also going to exacerbate political conflict and increases risks of election and political violence as people move because of flooding, extreme weather incidents, huge movements of people, but also resources become more challenging in the context of climate change. So I mean, I think that there are a lot of, and I'm sorry, it's very doom and gloom apologies for that, but those are just some of the good things that I'm not going to upv one so soon. Yes, we've been thinking about sort of from a global context things that we've seen as global challenges and just trying to pull some of the threads that other people had already mentioned earlier. That was an absolutely gorgeous summary, Avery, as I was guessing that you would do. And a few of the themes that you've pulled together, if we take across the range of what we're talking about, everything from disinformation to the security issues, to the risks of a pandemic, to the possible security threats that have come up throughout this conversation. And the themes that are kind of arising are really what election management, whether it's at the polling station level or at the national level or state level, what you're dealing with is not just organizing a predictable event that you can imagine what it is and do a straight march there. It's a whole different type of skill sets that you're talking about to be able to deal with this panoply of issues that may or may not arise. And so really it's about the ability to identify risks in advance, maybe the ability to work with others to see, okay, what in all of this is a possible risk for us? And how do we ensure that we've got the funding or the strategies or people to pull on to be able to deal with it? It's also this kind of crisis management. When it hits us, what do we do? Bushfire, but the electoral calendar says this. So the ability to have one team dealing with that and the other team dealing with normal things. And that kind of crisis management isn't something that we automatically knew to empower electoral management bodies with, for example, an electoral assistance. And overall, really, aren't we talking about resilience, that we're moving towards both as a society, but also the organizations themselves. It's the ability to handle what hits you rather than the ability to deliver a predicted event. So it's new territory. And so here I want to bring us to the next part of this arc of the story. The first was painting a picture of protecting elections and against what. And as Avery said, it's a pretty scary picture. And we've got really brave people on the front lines dealing with this. But how do we support them? So in our reports, there were a range of issues that came up. And I should point to these other reports, which are excellent too. For example, the IFAS reports on how to deal with challenges in these tough times. But what rose up, so the EBA report was about electoral assistance over the years. And interestingly, what lasted beyond the intervention. So the interventions were often about helping a particular election over the event, like just making sure an event happened. But because we looked retrospectively, retroactively backwards, and we said, what lasted? What was sustainable? What was still there long after the intervention? And that's when these themes of norms, networks, and knowledge started to rise up. That somehow intervention by intervention, elections were muddled through, we got through them somehow. But what lasted was a field of human beings who pretty well understand how to organize elections well, who are dealing with some tough issues right now. And that that was like a lasting legacy. And so I wanted to take these themes of norms, knowledge, and networks and see what does that mean moving forward? How do we prepare the next generation? What is the infrastructure that is needed for them to handle what hits them when what hits them is unknown? So what what do we have to upgrade or revitalize in terms of our support, both in our own countries, but also in terms of electoral support through donor agencies and so forth, to those democracies who are doing it tough right now. And to Avery, I'm going to start with you because you've dedicated most of your career to this idea of an infrastructure of norms. And I want to just place norms as being anything from international obligations, which you've been involved in. But really, it's a shared sense of what something should be like. And so norms can also be that interagency cooperation is what do we want to achieve with these elections that are coming up. And I also wanted to say that knowledge, the way that we framed it in the report is not just about facts, it's about empowerment and building confidence in our frontline people by knowing what is possible, what's available and with policymakers and so forth. So just to give a bit of context on what that is. And networks is really all the human connection, whether it's between agencies, between civil society and election commissions, or between international communities. So networks can be all kinds of things. So with that framing in mind, Avery, if you could give us a bit of structure. Thanks, Tress. I will try. I just to start though, I love this framing of norms, networks and knowledge. And as I was sort of reflecting on that, and sort of your comments about normative frameworks and the work that I've done over the years, I think I've really been sort of thinking about how it appeals to, I think sort of fundamental questions for human beings, right? This question of like, how do I know something? And how can I connect with other people? I feel like as curious social creatures, those are two of our like most sort of existential questions. And so, you know, when I'm thinking about some of the norms, networks, knowledge and some of the things that I have worked on over the years, you know, the questions for me are like, how do we know if our elections are free and fair or meet international standards? How do I know that we're all talking about the same thing when we say elections and different parts of the election process? How can we have a common language that we can use globally to talk about this very important part of our democratic process? How do we know what to do as you're saying to us when we are trying to administer elections in a super challenging environment that maybe we haven't personally encountered before? And then, how do I connect with other people who I can support when they are going through something difficult and who can support me when I'm going through something difficult? So I think that these are just sort of fundamental questions. And as you mentioned, I spent a lot of time thinking about these issues over the years. And, you know, when I think about sort of why we need to continue to invest in these structures, because I think we do, you know, and I start maybe from the normative side of things. And when I think of normative things, I do, you know, naturally go to international obligations and standards, because that's, you know, my baby. But I really think it's because norms continue to grow and evolve with us as new challenges emerge. We need to continue to think about what we all mean by good elections, what we all mean by, you know, stand elections that meet standards. Just recently in the last couple of months, we've gone through an update of our election obligations and standards database because we recognize that, you know, now we need to think much more about what privacy means in the context of elections. What does it mean to address violence against women in politics? Are there standards and sort of collective norms that we can all agree on that we need to be thinking about in the context of our election observation work or in our support to citizen observers or election officials? I think it's also important to have sort of real world comparative experience about issues, right? It makes us better to, it makes us better at contextualizing what we're seeing and makes us better forecasters of what might be coming down the road at us as we, as we see an election challenge approaching, we can sort of look and see what experiences others have had and what lessons we can take from that. And I think that's where resources like the ACE electoral knowledge network, the ACE project can really provide so much to a global community of election practitioners. First of all, there's the encyclopedia, there's great resources, but there's also a network of other people who are thinking about similar questions and you can just sort of find out who's thinking about what based on, you know, what's on the website. But, you know, there's also a broader engagement with like academics who are thinking about this from maybe the 30,000 foot level who are taking a longer view than maybe we who are in the day to day sort of grist mill of elections are able to really to take. And then I think just kind of on the network side of things when I think about the declaration of principles for election observation, I think it's been so fundamental to how we think about election observation and just having sort of a community of practice of folks that are thinking about similar issues, facing similar challenges who can kind of come together around our values, the faster values maybe that Amber was talking about and have some sort of intellectual cohesion, but also have a sense of solidarity, right. And these sorts of networks, this is just the observation one that I'm talking about, but obviously there's networks of election officials at the national level internationally, these networks are so critical, I think, as a way of supporting one another, making these human connections, creating a shared sense of expertise and experience and professionalism and pride. But also helps us in our sort of quest for continuous improvement in the practice of democracy, because it is a daily practice that we all have to undertake. And so these all of these resources and networks really help us to do that work well and so require an investment of time and money and people power and brain power. That sounds like a gorgeous package of recommendations to put forward, but basically that these are worth investing in. And I would like to just reiterate with what you've said from what was found in the study. And that is that these professional development opportunities, for example, these networks and so forth, were a safe space in which to discuss those contested issues, for instance. So there was the example, there's a case study in the study from Timor-Leste, where when something is going to be introduced long before it becomes polarized and contested and becomes like this, this something that is used by one side or another to get each other over the head, the electoral authorities there use something called the bridge project, which is a curriculum package that's very gentle and built on international standards. And they put together a module and they do this always before they think of introducing reform to discuss something through in a safe space with the different stakeholders who will likely be involved. So that using a week of time and exploring how is this done in other parts of the world, what values are important for Timor-Leste and so forth. And by using that safe space, the comparative knowledge and dealing with those issues in advance before they become weaponized later. So I think that there is, yeah, there's concrete ways in which they sound abstract, but you've really helped us make them concrete. And to help us with that, and just see if this resonates at all with you in terms of on the ground. Zoe, I'll turn to you now. You were talking about, and today you were seeing your officials on the ground doing the work and so forth. What do you see as support structures that are helpful? And does any of what Avery was saying resonate with you in terms of how to empower our front lines to deal with what hits them? Yeah, I think for me this topic is so fascinating and so important because coming from the civil society world that I used to be in, and then putting on an election officials hat, this idea of networking and building relationships on a local level is, I mean, to me it's so integral to building trust and confidence in elections. If you have stakeholders that you can talk to that you have relationships with on a local level, then this idea that even if they don't agree with what you do in the end and the decisions you make, they understand the reasons and the rationale behind it. So especially, well, since I joined in 2018, the election commission for 2019, the election commission has tried to take concrete steps to make efforts in engaging civil society. But a lot of the time this can be met with resistance from frontliners because they don't necessarily, they know the norms, they've read the documents, they know that the ideas that are out there, but they don't connect them to the benefits and how this actually will help me in my work rather than being a burden. So if I have to consult with civil society, for example, it just adds another layer to all the work that I have to do. So what's been really good is to be able to have them network with civil society and they can see how actually engagement and transparency and adhering to these norms actually makes their work a lot easier because you don't have the pushback, you don't have to, and you have competent and valuable feedback before you make the final decision at the end of the day. So this idea of networking on a local level has been crucial in the last two years to trying to strengthen our elections and make them more robust. But on an international level as well, I say there's been a lot of resistance to this idea that these norms and international standards cannot possibly reflect our unique local circumstances. We have such, the local context will override these norms and these expectations that maybe they see as too unrealistic to apply on the ground. But what I've seen really helps is when they can meet peer groups that have the same or very similar experiences internationally or regionally, they meet with these officials that have the same job as them on the ground, but have embraced these norms, have embraced these standards. And actually their work is so much easier because they've embraced these standards. I think that key to moving forward is making sure that even though we can share these norms with them, they have to really buy into them themselves by seeing the benefits to their work on the front line. I think you've picked up on something that is really, really important and that is the potential for civil society and electoral authorities to be reasonably aligned, but of course with very, very distinct roles. And it can play out with small tensions on the ground, but if there is some kind of bigger sense that it is worthwhile. And Malaysia is an example of where there's a very vibrant civil society and very knowledgeable, very knowledgeable on boundary delimitation, on training and so forth. And so it is, you can, there is learning that can happen. And I think that the neighbouring Indonesia is a really, really good case. And that is when the electoral authority, the KPU was, when their mandate was kind of under attack from the lower house. In fact, civil society stepped up and said that's not okay. And they pointed that out. And also when there were voter tabulation issues, like how were those results going to come in efficiently? The electoral authorities were actually open to learning from what the observers had done, which was just taking pictures and then sending them back and so forth. And so that kind of, of course, civil society can be captured, but it needs to have that. But that there is a bigger societal good that appropriate working relations can really help. So that was a great summary of that. Amber, I'm wondering if this knowledge flow resonates for you. And the US is so decentralized. So how does that knowledge flow happen? And what I'm seeing now really in these past couple of years, which I haven't seen before, is that there's starting to be an exchange between US discussions on electoral reform and the global. Before it was like it was in two different worlds and they didn't collide very much. But I'm seeing, for example, with this webinar that we're doing right now, that there actually are similarities where we can learn from each other. How do you see this, Amber? Well, I think first and foremost, one of our great challenges in the United States is as you mentioned, the decentralized nature. So the rules of the game vary by state and sometimes even vary by jurisdiction within the state. And so the lack of federal baselines, I think, I think continues to compound the election security threats on election officials and also the process and frankly continues to create confusion because bad actors can utilize that lack of clarity across the 50 states and the sort of lack of federal baselines to their advantage. And when you look at the national news networks or social media or Facebook or even where I serve on the board, the postal service could not even communicate a clear deadline to request an absentee ballot across the country because it's different in every state and the voter registration deadline also completely varies by state. And so I really truly believe that better and more consistent federal baselines, like what is proposed in some of the federal legislation right now that's pending and sitting, I should say in Congress, is really important to creating more consistency for voters, but also clarifying the procedures and creating an environment where the rules of the game are more clear across the board and not to say that there should be a federal takeover elections. That's not what our Constitution calls for, but we have a history of bipartisan federal legislation across the board going all the way back to the enfranchisement of women in the 19th amendment, the 15th amendment, then the Voting Rights Act, then the Help America Vote Act, which was signed by President Bush after Florida 2000, the NVRA in the 90s, and then of course our military and overseas legislation that has enfranchised and created more consistency for them. So we have a history of bipartisan federal legislation supporting the election process and I think it's needed right now more than ever because of the continued disinformation attacks by bad actors and I do believe it would help clarify the rules of the game, if you will, at the local level. And then just tangibly a couple of other examples for ways to educate the folks within states and for election officials to educate legislators and also journalists. One of the things that I did when I was in Denver, we started hosting what we called a media tour before every election and we'd have that two or three weeks prior to each election day. I'd spend hours mic'd up with a group of media folks and sometimes it was multiple tours, but walking them through every detail of the process for in-person voting and also for absentee voting, they got to get their B-roll and capture footage that they could then use on election night, but they knew where to go to get the right information if there was a question that came up and then they also got all those questions answered well in advance and they could start reporting to the public with clarity about how the process could be. We also extended those tours to all elected officials in Denver, all candidates on the ballot, all campaigns and staff, the public at large, so we regularly invited and really used transparency and the tours of our office to educate the public and we would do it every election cycle and we'd highlight changes, but we really gave people the ability to come in and ask their questions and be heard and then we also created a public elections advisory group and that still is in existence today in Denver. It includes members of both political parties, non-profit and intergovernmental agencies, elected officials, local leaders, business community. It includes a wide array of community leaders across all sectors and the you know the goal there was to educate them so that they could also be champions for what we were trying to do and champions of the information to the public at large. So those are just a few examples but I think it really is something that I think election officials are in the United States especially are really going to need to be focused on ahead of 2022 to further clarify and it takes patience and it's going to take a lot of time to do those activities but it's well worth it in the end especially with local journalists and the media so that they fully understand the process they're reporting on. Gorgeous examples Amber and I think if we go back to your point earlier about the taken for grantedness one thing that the pandemic changed was everything about taken for granted and I think for those maybe more established democracies or where things have always been done this way this imperative of public communication or the imperative of bringing community leaders together to say here's what's happening that might have not been in the necessity you know when things are always the same and it's always like it was and we've always done it this way but the pandemic really helped bring everybody globally into the same space which is actually public communication really matters as does this interagency cooperation or multi-stakeholder involvement and interestingly in the history of you know elections globally it really this idea of civic education didn't come from established democracies or the western european and so forth where things were you know parents taught their kids and it was kind of done as it always was I'll take the example of sweden for instance where the tax authorities a small unit inside the tax authorities were responsible for for for the elections and did not see civic education as anything as a mandate you told people where to come and when and what to bring but but that was it's no sense of why it mattered and so forth and I really have to commend our southern african colleagues after apartheid they really brought in these habits of explaining and explaining in a way that resonated and those civic education campaigns and those methods have really spread throughout the world since then not least through the ace project so so in terms of global learning that's global learning that that especially our our yeah Namibian south african and so forth colleagues have have benefited us with this idea that civic education actually belongs with electoral authorities was not obvious before then and idina does this resonate with you um as you've been going through various challenges was it helpful to have networks that you can rely on um this this conversation about norms networks or knowledge how do you see it in terms of supporting our frontline people well I have attended numerous events organized by european association of election officials as regional organization and also activities organized by world association of election bodies and that was a great field for lessons learned we who are there not to repeat the mistakes I also use electoral knowledge network uh part out regularly um always being afraid is it updated when I need when I need it and but there are great resources that you mentioned today one of them is this publication that uh international foundation for electoral system published like um overcoming challenges to democracy in post conflict countries and and also I would like to mention the tool that we used when when we in Bosnia and Herzegovina several years ago had terrible flooding as new climate challenging um challenge and we we actually were lucky country to be a part of your pilot project and we got this risk management tool so we were able actually to monitor the situation with with flooding and to to see how this will affect the polling stations location and to be better prepared to respond uh on crisis to time uh and and simply to navigate this process through the crisis but sometimes I'm afraid that my colleagues are not aware of all these possibilities because we are not um offering these um let's say sources in more systematic way so I would like to see all these what exist as excellent tool to be available for us we usually call each other in the same regime relying a lot of these regional networks and they're great networking but I think that we could we could do better and the the second point um that I wanted to raise is just that my country depends a lot on um electoral assistance we don't like when they come just prior to the elections to solve the problem we would really like in the future to see them uh focused on long-term activities on the whole election cycle uh we we can do much more to be better prepared to respond to all these challenges when we work uh slowly in non-election year we have to evaluate every election cycle we have to evaluate every electoral management body performance our education should be continuous all this is something that will help us to when finally electoral assistance and to be able to continue with these sustainable let's say activities lessons learned what we can improve what what went wrong how we respond and cooperate better of course it is not just working international community and election management body as my colleagues mentioned all institutions media civil society groups all of us we all have important role election management bodies should be more proactive and change their behavior electoral assistance organization should actually always speak with one voice and defend democratic standards and all others stakeholders should be much more cooperative and should support election management bodies uh that's gorgeous seetain and a lovely conclusion to to that round and um you actually pointed to some of the the recommendations that we have in this uh the eba study that that framed this discussion and one was that um the regional uh initiatives such as the ac triple a o that you mentioned um that that is an under resourced but um really an optimal place for for growing and for sharing and it is um it's that one step removed from the politicization that can happen in countries so that that hits on that recommendation and another one is that electoral assistance bilateral electoral assistance should be um long term and very um in with what is going on there not some kind of um off the shelf package of what needs to happen but very in tune with um the the issues that as they're happening on the ground and that those bilateral missions should be able to leverage global knowledge and support where needed in an agile manner so that was one of the the recommendations and so speaking of which we're now coming towards the end of of this um this webinar and uh i'm going to hand over to david soon but i'll just do a quick uh work around and we have one question i think i'm just checking in with uh with david um and he's just given me the the question i'll just grab it here excellent thank you all right excellent okay we actually have two questions which i will summarize they're very good um and i will put them into a third one which is just um to help david which is what should we be saying to the summit of of democracies um so on at the end of this week um countries are committing to something what is it we are hoping that they commit to i can say in advance that one of the things that we're hoping for and i think that this webinar does support is some kind of a regular place to meet and here i want to use the example of declaration of principles that that avery brought up before the declaration of principles is i think a real ideal format where observation groups have because they need regularly have been able to to share develop methodologies learn and be much quicker um to respond into something on the ground because of those relationships that were created that doesn't exist in the electoral assistance community and as well uh principles that need updating and so forth so i'll do one round of that but i want to add in a note that comes from these questions which is the backsliding that our global state of democracy talks about in a time when elections are potentially hijacked does electoral support mean that you're legitimizing something that shouldn't be legitimized um and and where does that fit into all of this supporting the front lines but at what point is that not right and who are we supporting when democracy is being undermined that's a super hard question and i'll leave it up to each of you to just just a few words on either what to recommend to the summit or if you have any thoughts on these issues of authoritarianism and backsliding i'll start with you zoe because since it's the middle of the night you'll be most tired and i'll get your last ounce of energy um zoe any thoughts on this i apologize if i'm fading a bit um it is the middle of the night and i've had a busy day but um yeah i think just the main takeaway that i just to sum up what what i've said in the in my previous interventions is is this need to take the experiences of these election frontliners and give them the idea and the belief that they're being heard when when we talk about norms when we talk about about standards that we expect them to uphold they need to feel like they their voice is being heard and they need to buy into these standards um because otherwise i mean i've had a very steep learning coming into an election management body with these ideas with these notions from civil society of how things should be done but you if you don't have them believing in it with you even if you try to force it on them it's not going to work until you get them to to have this connection to these norms and values so that that's just um my last summary thanks zoe and thanks for staying awake for us um i think one of the thing one way of summarizing what you've said and and it's um is is local ownership and it is one of the principles the ocd DAC principles of electoral assistance for instance but it's one of the ones that's almost hardest um and and in a way international you know is international obligations a stick or is it something to be grown from within in terms of culture uh perhaps both but um if if it's if we're going to live with it better that it'd be part of our our culture these these these norms thank you so much um zoe uh amber um how will you leave us um what will you leave us with um i think i think first and foremost um you know in any civil society and and democracies around the world um information that the public has on the voting process that they can trust is critically important so local election officials uh and we actually ran a poll last summer looking at this and and you know with those local folks at the local level are the most trusted sources of information now that's under attack um but but certainly that is very important and so investing in communications around the election process and educating voters not only eligible electors in this election but really thinking about uh starting civics far earlier than we do in the united states right now uh it's often a discussion that happens in high school i myself have an eight and ten year old and i my children have been helping me with my ballot we've been having those discussions since first grade uh when they when they started to read and so i do think that we really do have to start at a far younger age uh in terms of engaging our next generation of voters um in these discussions and and really helping them understand the choices that they make on the ballot and how that translates uh to their representation in what they see uh within their communities and then investment the united states uh has done a very poor job of investing in our public infrastructure that it is our elections and that needs to change and there needs to be federal investment i also believe there needs to be federal consistency with baselines not direct states how to run elections necessarily or not to create ceilings but to create floors and create baselines so that we can better communicate with clarity uh to the election um to the election community and then by extension the voters um and then i think that you know one of the other deteriorations that we've seen in the united states which i know has also happened globally is local journalism uh i think we've seen about a 60 reduction in the number of local journalists in the united states in the last 10 years and local journalists are just behind local election officials in terms of trust in the information being provided and some of the best coverage about the issues in the united states this year whether it was arizona or georgia or michigan has has largely been from local journalists in those states uh and so i think we also have to think about the role that local journalists play in making sure that uh they're they have funding to do what they need to do often they're covering 25 different things um and so that that investment in democracy by news organizations uh and by nonprofits and the intergovernmental agencies is really really important so that people know how to get good information and can and can and read about the election process there and then again i'll finally just say i really truly believe this is about our civic health uh that includes the voting process that includes um how we uh interact with each other when we have political conversations that extends to our children and how they see civics going forward um and and we very much need to make sure that our guardians of democracy uh the election officials that run the process not only in united states but around the world are protected as part of protecting and securing the elections uh and we also have to simultaneously um protect against insider threats because we're also seeing a lot of very extreme people trying to run for secretary of state jobs or election official jobs in the united states and unfortunately our current governance process uh has a lot of partisan politics in it which is very different than the international community where it's often more independent or administrative uh in the united states we we have a much more politically polarized and partisan process where people run on the party ticket while trying to also run the election process which is it sets in and of itself it sets up an odd construct and a perception problem uh so i think we definitely also uh in in final in my final comment is is really think about how elections are being governed and at the at the federal state and local level and make sure that we've got the right structures in place because i think that that we have seen some vulnerabilities uh in those structures and we need to think with clarity about what makes the most sense to build trust amongst the electorate at large thank you so much um amber and uh again you in some ways echoed parts of what zoe said but you took it even deeper uh local level democratic culture and in some ways that is our protection against potential those who might undermine democratic processes that protection can come from from from the community and that's something to think about with electoral assistance as we go forward that's a real shift from from how electoral assistance used to be done to really think about that local level and culture um irena if you don't mind just because of the time do you mind if i just give to avery quickly just um and then and then to david to to round us out is that okay irena because you gave some okay great thanks um avery just just a couple of minutes for you in case there's something we've missed and then we'll hand over to david to to pull it all together ha ha ha good luck avery so i guess just a couple of things that i would i mean i agree and plus ones to everything that zoe and amber have have already sort of said as recommendations i mean i think one thing that i would say just thinking about the summit is that i think it's really important that elections be a part of how they frame the summit discussion right that elections are really fundamental to the life of democracy and to countering authoritarianism and corruption and protecting human rights so just to sort of make sure that we are very clear that we think that elections need to be a part of these conversations that are happening later this week and then through through the next year um and then specifically thinking about my community of election observers you know i'd really like us to think more about how we can sort of recognize the role of credible citizen and international observers in defending democratic infrastructure and that we think about protecting them also they are increasingly under threat are there ways that we can sort of bring the protections afforded to human rights defenders to citizen and international election observers who play such a critical role in promoting transparency education information about the election process thank you that is absolutely gorgeous so yes elections on the agenda which they weren't at the summit and but also learning from the human rights community on what protection looks like because it may be needed moving forward so society is protection and so forth i mean i just want a nod from you if this resonates does it does it make sense to you um okay great thank you in that case i will pass to um david to to um to to you you've listened to all of this where do you see it moving forward you're going to be the drafter of our our our document moving forward david i think this has been a wonderful conversation i want to thank you as well as the panels for the terrific inputs you had you know i can't help but sort of think that something you alluded to at the top of the hour that if this panel had been happened 20 30 years ago the comments that would have been made um the people that would have been part of this panel would have been drastically different and i think that you know part of i think what all the panelists have sort of touched on is you know securing our elections which frankly right our national security imperative takes a whole of society effort um we can't be leaving out right groups of people to combat the threats from autocratic actors um we need to be sure um that the threats that we face right whether they're from climate change or serious weather events or from myths or discs or mal information or from cyber security right are things that we are thinking about dealing with in a holistic manner um you know we need to be able to make sure that we can run um elections even when there aren't necessarily huge pressing issues right on us but we also need to be thinking about what issues might we face around the corner and i think you know something that a number of the panelists spoke about is that we're pretty good at running elections increasingly throughout the world when we sort of you know with the challenges that we know about ahead of time um but when we're talking about dealing with the unforeseen or the unknowable challenges or when we're thinking about um not necessarily responding to actual election challenges but perceptions people have that are in fact challenges we then are in a much tougher place and so you know as you're reporting and and and and sort of you know these panels have touched on i think there are a number of things that we ought to be thinking about number one we need to be thinking about how we can support those on the front lines of our elections as best as possible um they need to you know if they to a point that zoe made if they don't believe that their views are being reflected in some of the sort of the broader documents and the important international documents that we've seen right then they're likely that they're going to abide by them or be able to understand them is going to diminish and so we need to be taking their views into effect and we've got to think about holistically how we can support them um whether we're thinking about protecting them um you know from threats of violence harassment or abuse of nature and for touchdown the u.s but whether we're thinking about right strife and things even as a significant civil war right at a point that are in touched on right at the outset i think that's really important i think we also have to be thinking about um the role that technology and social media have and you know i think it's there's sometimes an inclination for folks to think that you know all of the solutions to these problems either need to come from election officials or those that may be focus on these issues on a daily or hour by hour basis such as avery right but i think this is going to require ultimately right a whole of society effort um we need to see social media companies right continuously thinking of ways that they can be amplifying obviously accurate and honest information but creating at very least more friction with regards to information that has the ability to cast doubt on the integrity of sort of democratic elections and so you know my hope is is that as we move forward and we see how elections are changing in so many ways based on the various challenges we face whether it's extreme weather or the threats from domestic and foreign actors we're mindful about how we can best service our voters right whether that's being able to offer more voted home voting options right it's also we need to be thinking about what we need to do to try and ensure that we've got adequate trust right from the electorate and that means of course whenever we're making changes to our election processes that we're explaining them early right and obviously we've heard a tremendous amount of input there about the need to bring people and stakeholders in early to the process right whether that's providing tours ahead of time with regards to how election processes are being changed right or being able to bring the civil society in early on so that they can be an ally with election officials as opposed to maybe an adversary or a reluctant participant um and so you know I'll just sort of finish up by sort of saying we need a sort of whole society effort right to counter bad acts um and I think you know I would look to the reports that you alluded to as well as these panels for ideas on how to do that and I would also implore right everybody who's listening in here um and thinking about these issues to think about what you can do right to help your democracy or to help democracy around the world whether that's being able to cast a ballot right to a point Amber made about the 80 million people in our perspective in 2020 serving as a poll worker right or being more informed about your processes and maybe being part of the global election observation community we need each and every one of you to counter the diversifying risks that exist with regards to our elections and to ensure the trust in our elections remain because nothing short of our democracy is at stake thank you so much for that summary David and that impassioned bringing in of all of those who I can't see but I'm so excited that all of you are with us the those who have joined us on the webinar today so thank you all for coming those who are have logged in I look forward to hearing from you in in other ways since I can't see you on these screens but I really want to thank our wonderful panelists I think you are the leaders of the well your leaders already now but you're the leaders of this different way of doing things that David described so beautifully a way of doing electoral assistance a way of doing elections that is holistic that is communicative that is relationally intuitive and aware and I think you're all just excellent examples of that and it's been such a pleasure to spend this hour and a half with you thank you David for putting this all together for for the summit I can't wait to see it inside in the recommendations we wish them all luck those who are working on the summit but we hope that it's not a one-off affair we'd like it to be regular we need to be having these conversations across countries within societies local between actors that is what is needed more communication more networks more knowledge flowing and on that I just want to thank also all the team who's put this together the gorgeous team behind the scenes and all of the people who put together the democracy coalition forum of which this is a part thank you all for coming and that ends this webinar here