Free and Fair: When Monitoring Works, Why It Fails
By Karen Kemp
In these news reports and hundreds more like them lie the seeds of Judith Kelley’s research. Reading them, she wondered how foreign observers rose to such influential roles, when elections were traditionally such a bastion of national sovereignty. Why do some countries invite election monitoring organizations, when candidates clearly intend to cheat? Are foreign election monitors accurate and objective? Most important, do they improve the quality of elections?