Appendix 3

RECOMMENDATION1

ON THE RULING OF ELECTION CAMPAIGN FINANCING
OF CANDIDATES AND POLITICAL PARTIES

1. The General Assembly of the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO) calls its Member States to take appropriate measures to promote equal opportunities for all candidates and political parties during the election campaigns. For this reason precise regulation shall cover the funding of political parties and campaign spending of candidates and political parties.
2. The funding of political parties shall be transparent and their income shall be made public. With the purpose of eliminating or limiting the possibility of non-desired influence by certain donators on political parties
a) The circle of potential donators shall be determined and certain groups (e.g. foreign persons and legal entities, public offices, unidentifiable donors) can be excluded from offering donation,
b) The possible amount of donation offered by one person or legal entity shall be limited,
c) The identity of donators whose donation exceed a certain limit shall be made open to the public,
d) Political parties and candidates may receive subsidies from the state budget in a non-discriminatory, proportional manner. State subsidies can be either direct or indirect (e.g. tax benefits for the donators).
3. The allowed campaign expenditure of candidates and political parties shall be limited. The expenditure of candidates and political parties shall be transparent and made public.
4. Governor parties shall be prohibited from misusing of state property and resources.
5. The observance of the rules on party funding and campaign financing shall be ensured by efficient state control through appropriate procedural rules and institutional frames. Irregularities and infringements of the above mentioned rules should be sanctioned by law.
6. ACEEEO shall make further researches on the theoretical and practical field of campaign finance with the intention of providing its Members with utilizable experiences.

RECOMMENDATION2

CONVENTION ON ELECTION STANDARDS, ELECTORAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

1. It is necessary to amplify the preamble with the followings: the multi-party system must be a constitutional presupposition, with respect to produce a convention that will not give the possibility for an autocratic system to appear democratic.
2. More guaranties must be implied in the Convention:
- (e. g. the neutrality of the election organs, as they have to work independently from the influence of the government bodies
- it must be clarified that the electoral management/administration must be regulated by the laws accepted by the parliament
- a greater emphasise must be placed on the role of the courts, for e. g. cancellation of a candidature, or in case if somebody was omitted from the register
- it must be a general rule that any of the decisions of the election bodies has to be questionable before the court
- the question of the participation of the foreign citizens in election campaigns must be considered
- the guarantees concerning the public media must be widened
3. Impartiality should be a requirement not only for leaders but for employees
4. There is a different bottom age limit of the suffrage in each country
5. The convicted has different suffrage in each countries (there are countries they have suffrage, there are countries, they do not have and there are some countries where an intermediate solution is applied)
6. Protection of privacy vs. the principle of publicity (access to addresses)
7. Regulation of the campaign and campaign financing (in majority systems as well, where candidates compete)
8. There must be a striving after the elaboration and introduction of secure alternative voting (high-tech) methods
9. In case there is obligatory suffrage in a country (for ex. in Belgium) it would not offend the international standards

RECOMMENDATION3

ON E-VOTING, AS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE ELECTION MECHANISM’S MODERNIZATION PROCESS

The General Assembly of the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO)
Being aware that the Information and Communication Technology is one of the most potent forces in shaping the twenty-first century,
Conscious that democracy is becoming increasingly affected by new technologies,
Considering that e-technologies are gaining ground in all aspects of public services, thus e-voting will continue to become an essential tool for election administration,
Bearing in mind that e-election system procedures must safeguard the fundamental human rights and constitutional principles associated with the voting process,
1. In the modernization process of governments utilization of new and innovative technologies should be encouraged. Governments' commitment is necessary in this direction.
2. It is necessary to use computer technology in all segments of an election system. This is considered as the development of e-election. E-voting is an important part of e-election, and can be carried out when all the other segments of the election system are already computerized.
3. Election management bodies should develop detailed plans to implement any e-election systems. Information technology used for e-voting purposes should be introduced gradually, thus gaining the confidence of both election officials and voters. It is advisable to start with pilot projects and extend the system thereafter. The advised sequence of introducing e-voting technologies is to start at the most controlled environment (polling stations) and move to remote voting afterwards.
4. When considering an e-voting system it is necessary to comply with the legal, operational and technical standards for e-voting prepared by the Council of Europe and planned to be adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 2004. The considered e-voting system need to be adequately legitimized by the electoral law and precise by-laws thereto at the national level.
5. The e-election development should be completed within 5 to 10 years depending on the member country's specific system of election and infrastructure.

RECOMMENDATION4

ON MEDIA COVERAGE OF ELECTION

1. The General Assembly of the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO) calls its Member States to take appropriate measures to promote the national legislative background of media coverage of elections. For this reason the national legislation shall cover the basic international legal documents, such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as well as generally applicable norms (lex generalis) and media-related specific norms (lex specialis).
2. The Member States shall take into account when promoting the national legislation that the generally applicable norms shall cover:
- the citizens’ right to adequate and balanced information;
- equal treatment of political parties and candidates irrespective of their actual political power;
- safeguarding the public interest;
- minimum standards determining the rights of the political parties and candidates for free air-time, advertisements and campaign debates.

The special media-related norms shall cover:
- equal rights for media to access adequate and balanced information;
- minimum standards on equal treatment of media representation of political parties and candidates during the campaign;
- minimum common standards on the use of Internet by political parties and candidates during the entire period of the election;
- sanctions breaking the basic rights concerning freedom of expression and equal treatment.
3. Member States shall take the necessary measures to develop, in close co-operation with the representatives of the media sector, a Code of Ethics for journalists.

RECCOMMENDATION5

on Voter Turnout

- The member states of ACEEEO should enlarge the statistical and sociological information collection for the turnout, in order to create increasing database and statistical evaluation of the election results.
- They should enlarge the exitpoll surveys, with the infiltration of the former participation related questions. (A powerful limit of this retrospective information collection is the subsequent "overvaluation", which needs to be revised by the completion of the post-control.)
- It is extremely important to examine the age-specific research of the voter turnout and collect the information aiming to this.
- The member states aim to pursue effective party-neutral campaign in order to increase the general voter turnout, to elaborate electoral mobilization-programs. The non-profit organizations, foundations separated from the political parties and state-organs seems to be the most effective solution but the activity of the electoral organs of this direction is not negligible either.
- In order to increase the electoral activity of the young people, we recommend principally practicing the infiltrated programs in the education.
- It is necessary to create as many non-governmental organizations as possible, which - besides the youth organizations of the political parties - are able to develop the public life activity.
- The ACEEEO must continue to collect the voter turnout data of the member states, and inform related researchers about the turnout and results.
- The ACEEEO must continue its project about the first voters, and motivate the member states to create an internet site for their first voters, containing the necessary information for the elections and executing the electoral mobilization role as well.

The ACEEEO must participate actively in the civic education programs of the Council of Europe and the European Union, and motivate the member states to participate in these programs.

RECOMMENDATION6

ON LEGAL REMEDIES IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS

The Conference of Global Election Organizations and General Assembly Meeting of the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO), considering that legal remedies have an important role in ensuring the legitimacy of elections, call their Members to take appropriate measures to guarantee the right to legal remedy in the electoral process.

1. Voters, political parties, candidates and other participants of the electoral process shall be entitled to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal established by constitutional law.
2. The body for appeals should either be
a. an electoral commission in the first instance - in this case a final appeal to the court should be possible
b. the ordinary court
c. a special electoral court
d. the constitutional court.
3. The independence of and the trust in the appeal body is of great importance, as decisions taken in electoral matters may have significant political effect, especially in the case of a particularly sensitive political environment.
4. The body for appeals shall have the power to ensure effective legal remedy, including the annulment of the electoral results or the entire electoral process and the mandate gained by electoral fraud.
5. Appeal bodies and investigating and law enforcement authorities shall be accordingly trained and educated to understand the political sensitivity of electoral matters.
6. An appropriate mechanism shall be created to enforce the decisions and sanctions taken by the appeal body.
7. An appropriate time limit for lodging appeals and also for making rulings shall be set, which is
a. short enough to provide quick legal remedy for the appellants, and on the same time
b. long enough to ensure the right of voters and other participants of the electoral process to an effective legal remedy and the genuineness of the decisions taken by the body for appeals.
8. Besides the legal regulations due administrative practice shall ensure that no technical obstacle interfere the right to effective legal remedy.
9. Electoral authorities should provide voter education to assist voters in exercising their right to effective legal remedy.

RECOMMENDATION7

ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF E-VOTING

The Conference of Global Election Organizations and General Assembly Meeting of the Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials (ACEEEO), call on their Members to take measures where appropriate to promote the introduction of e-voting technologies in the voting process as follows:
1. Members shall establish an international cooperation to create common perspective and a common vision for the development of e-democracy and e-voting. This will support sharing of information and, in particular, enable the setting out of the possible directions, the identification of best practices and the provision of guidance. The result of the joint work should be an e-democracy route map which can be utilised by Member states.
Advantages of this international co-operation:
- greater public confidence in e-voting systems
- greater confidence in e-voting systems among politicians
- enhance interoperability
- speed up the introduction of e-voting
- minimise the cost of the introduction of e-voting
2. It is advised that election authorities develop a national plan for the modernization of the election process that includes e-voting. Such plans can be integrated into national strategies on the development of e-government.
3. The planned e-voting systems should respect the obligations and commitments of the accepted basic international documents on democratic elections, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, adopted by the Council for democratic elections of the Council of Europe and the European Commission for Democracy through Law, the document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the OSCE.
4. Before introducing e-voting, according to national requirements, members should take the necessary steps to create the national legislative background to enable the introduction of e-voting technologies in the voting process.
5. Before introducing e-voting the election management bodies should develop a detailed plan to implement any e-election systems. The plan should respect the followings:
- Special attention has to be paid to develop public confidence, and the confidence of political parties.
- It is essential to define and communicate the vision of e-voting. Make the vision citizen-centered, define priority areas and timing.
- To insure the integrity of any e-voting technology, an adequate security system should be developed.
- Use a step-by-step introduction of e-voting technologies. It is recommended that this is done in a progressive manner, to develop the new system incrementally to meet the arising requirements. In the early phases of development the new system should be used parallel to the conventional one.
6. The e-voting system used at political elections or referenda should comply with the existing internationally accepted standards for e-voting.
7. Members should inform each other about challenges, difficulties and achievements in order to support the effective and efficient development of e-voting systems