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• Civil registry not updated
• Intimidation of witnesses, possibly preying on vulnerable low socioeconomic segments
• Untrained polling officials

• Lack of enforcement or consistent enforcement
• Ballots moved and counted without transparency

• Vote buying, also possibly taking advantage of low socioeconomic segments

“Another thing is election campaigners would stand by at a polling station to monitor, it’s

like a form of intimidation. They would stare at them, like threatening them from afar. This
is what actually happened in different communities. Because I was there at the polling
station, I saw this happen.”

- Male, 40+, Central Region

3.3.2 Paths to Building Confidence in Elections

Participants also were quickly able to share a variety of ways to build confidence in the

election system.

The range of suggestions for improving the system are categorized across these areas

(the list below is generally in the order of ideas mentioned most to least):

• Increase transparency – use technology (online voting, enhanced monitoring), open the
vote counting process, report results without delay
• Improve civil education and media reporting (and leverage media as a channel for the

education)
• Improve the selection of election managers (some supported a system of using partisans
from all sides to operate elections, others wanted non-partisan officials to operate them)

• Use civil society partnerships and independent auditing
• Review and improve laws
• Prevent vote buying/selling

• Recruit better (undefined what is meant by better) candidates
• Enforce election laws

• Improve identity verification at election places
• Election personnel need to take initiative to report problems

20 Citizen Attitudes and Priorities
for Strengthening Democracy