Last month I was invited to Stockholm by International IDEA to take part in developing a new BRIDGE training course on the Cost of Elections (and see some proper snow…).

BRIDGE is a world-leading set of training courses that have been developed to improve the knowledge of electoral administrators around the world.

Here’s a link to the excellent write up on the International IDEA website.  Notice the really important shift in language from seeing elections as a ‘cost’ to an ‘investment’:

On 20–21 November, senior practitioners and experts attended a workshop in Stockholm aimed at developing a new Building Resources for Democracy, Governance and Elections (BRIDGE) module on the financing and budgeting of elections.

This Expert Working Group shared stories of ‘elections gone wrong’, providing the next generation of election administrators “the gift of what we wish we had known when it comes to election financing”, explained, Therese Pearce Laanela, Senior Programme Manager at International IDEA.

Participants from Australia, Lesotho, Indonesia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Namibia shared stories, highlighting the myriad of challenges that election management bodies (EMBs) face in administering elections…..

Read more here.