Earlier in the month I attended the 13th meeting of Electoral Management Bodies organised by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, held in Bucharest, Romania.  Leontine Loeber and I presented our proposed research project on ‘Improving electoral management: The organisational determinants of electoral integrity’.

The aim of the project is to increase the existing understanding of the variation in institutional design of EMBs worldwide and the impact of EMB institutional design for election integrity. The project’s methods involve launching the first-ever survey of electoral administrators across Europe. The project team includes researchers from UEA, but also Holly Ann Garnett (McGill University Canada), Carolien van Ham and (University of New South Wales, Australia).

In the conclusion of the conference, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe endorsed the project to undertake a survey of electoral management bodies’ personnel in Europe and encourages electoral management bodies to nominate a survey facilitator and to complete the survey.

We plan to present the findings of the project at a future Venice Commission conference.  Watch this space.