The 8^th annual conference of the Association was held in the capital city of the Slovak Republic between 6-8 October 1999. Beside the staff of the Secretariat of the Association, the colleagues from the Election Division of the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic and a team from IFES also participated in the preparation of the conference.

The Bratislava Conference had historic significance as we celebrated the 10^th anniversary of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. In parallel with our achievements we had to face difficulties like decreasing participation of voters at the elections and we constantly struggle against election frauds.

Success in the election sphere is an on-going struggle. The theme of this years' conference recognizes that there is always more work to do. Acknowledging that the electorate is perhaps the most fundamental component of any election system, we examined ten years of trying to increase voter turnout. At the end of the conference we gained a few new tools to tackle this problem in innovative ways.