The FURIC conference, organized by the European Platform for Democratic Elections, is a joint effort of citizen election observation organizations in Europe to identify methods of strengthening democratic electoral standards by promoting synergies between national and international election observers throughout the electoral cycle.
The conference features a public high-level panel and closed expert sessions. Please register for the high-level panel above. The expert sessions are upon invitation only.
Welcome and Moderation
Key notes
Key notes
It is a common understanding that systematic dialogue between citizen and international election observers contributes greatly to electoral reform, including through legislative improvements. Cooperation between these two groups also helps develop methodologies to respond to emerging challenges as closing democratic space, cyber-security threats and other global challenges.
In this session, panelists will address the following guiding questions:
How do these and other aspects of the current context impact the environment in which citizen and international observers operate?
What challenges and opportunities emerge from this situation for the cooperation between independent international and citizen election observers in the OSCE region?
How can international institutions, such as the EU, the Council of Europe and the OSCE/ODIHR, protect and improve the functioning of their election observation under the described threats?
How did international institutions prevent or react to the challenges posed by authoritarian states in the past and what lessons can be drawn?
What structural, institutional, political reforms are needed to safeguard the proper functioning of citizen and international election observation in the OSCE region?
What concrete steps should be taken to protect and promote electoral reform through better co-operation between citizen and international observers?
This session provides an answer to the question of how to shape cooperation between civil society organizations and international observers in formulating recommendations and conducting follow-up activities throughout the entire electoral cycle. The goal is to initiate a new look at the potential of election observation at both the national and international levels and to develop new synergy approaches for democratic electoral reforms in Europe.
Moderator
Guiding questions:
How can citizen and international observers reinforce each other’s efforts to have governments implement recommendations and improve elections?
What are specific ways to strengthen co-operation and exchange of information?
How can cooperation between citizen and international observers address changes of political context and developments of electoral practices?
The overall need for synergies between citizen and international observers will be discussed in working groups. Special focus will be on the three pillars for greater synergies: (I) formulation, presentation and tracking of recommendations, (II) advocacy and reform in the follow-up, and (III) long-term electoral issues.
Formulating recommendations is an essential part of election observation. The ways in which different organizations formulate recommendations vary significantly. Co-operation between international and citizen observers hinges on synergies in their recommendations, as well as the process of bringing them to life between the elections and keeping track of the progress.
Moderator
Guiding questions:
How can international and citizen observers coordinate better in the formulation of recommendations? When should they meet? How often? What information can and should they exchange?
How can citizen and international observers involve each other in the presentation of their respective recommendations? What limitations they face in this co-ordination?
What tools do the organizations use to keep track of the recommendations and their implementation? Are methodologies compatible? What lessons have been learned so far?
Electoral reform is the desired outcome of any observation effort. Reform is generally preceded by the advocacy efforts to promote the need of the reform and to highlight the priority areas. International and citizen observers engage in such efforts, and often in the same forums. Their messages do not always coincide, creating a risk of misalignment in the efforts of the two communities and possibly impeding their cooperation during the reform efforts
Program Manager (Elections), Yiaga Africa
International Senior Adviser, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
Moderator
Guiding questions:
How can international and citizen observers better coordinate prioritization of areas for electoral reform?
What can be the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two communities in the electoral reform process, and how can they complement each other?
What can be the practical mechanisms for the coordinated involvement of both citizen and international actors in the reform process? When and how should such mechanisms be initiated?
Citizen election observers have the distinct advantage of following the electoral and political process in its completeness, including between the elections. At the same time, international actors often have greater comparative knowledge and more extensive connections with global actors. Practical mechanisms for the exchange of information can be explored to identify how the findings and assessments by citizen observers from the period between the elections can feed into the observation findings and inform the recommendations. This is relevant in the sphere of political party financial reports, procurement, testing and certification of electoral technologies, online political campaigning, as well as the use of disinformation in social media.
Moderator
Guiding questions:
What parts of the electoral cycle can citizen observers follow more closely than international actors? How can their observations feed into the activities of the international actors to promote common objectives?
What kind of support may citizen observers require to be better able to follow all parts of the electoral cycle? Are existing funding modalities adequate for the cyclical electoral process?
During this session, representatives of the three parallel sessions will present their findings and suggestions for the Conclusion Document of the FURIC conference. Panelists will share insights and provide recommendations to enhance collaboration between citizens and international election observers. Attendees are encouraged to actively engage by offering feedback on the draft Conclusion Document, expressing their commitment to implementing the outlined suggestions and recommendations. The discussion also aims to look ahead and identify the next steps in the development of citizen election observation in Europe and around the world.
Moderator
Guiding questions:
What are the concrete steps to be taken to have cooperation between international and citizen observers lead to the improvement of elections?
When and how should international and citizen observers exchange information?
CONTACT
Stefanie Schiffer
Chair of Board
European Exchange
Erkelenzdamm 5910999 Berlin, Germany
EPDE MEMBERS
Belarusian Helsinki Committee BHC (Belarus)
Committee of Voters of Ukraine CVU (Ukraine)
Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center EMDS (Azerbaijan)
European Exchange (Germany)
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor (Armenia)
Human Rights Center Viasna (Belarus)
International Elections Study Center IESC (Lithuania)
International Society for Free Elections and Democracy ISFED (Georgia)
Norwegian Helsinki Committee NHC (Norway)
Civil Network OPORA (Ukraine)
Political Accountability Foundation (Poland)
Promo-LEX Association (Moldova)
Stefan Batory Foundation (Poland)
Swedish International Liberal Centre SILC (Sweden)
Transparency International Anticorruption Center (Armenia)
Unhack Democracy (Hungary)
.png){kind=small}
