election-watch.eu

Bukarest/Vienna/Online, 20 July: Election-Watch.EU (wahlbeobachtung.org) was invited to speak at the Expert Forum online debate on planning election observation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of the international event organised by the Expert Forum (EFOR) was to exchange experience and good practice on how to organize election observation under the conditions of the pandemic, and to better understand how some countries which already organized elections under these conditions coped with the situation.

EFOR invited civil society organizations, electoral experts, international organizations and platforms, and other stakeholders. Among the speakers were Dr. Fernanda Buril, Senior research officer, Center for Applied Research and Learning, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES); Vujo Ilić, Policy and Research Advisor, Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) (Serbia); Zofia Lutkiewicz, Vice President, Political Accountability Foundation/Observers in Action (Poland); and Zlatko Dimitrioski, Analyst, Citizens Association MOST (North Macedonia). Michael Lidauer presented the findings and recommendations of the Election-Watch.EU Rapid Assessment on Covid-19 & Elections in Europe.

Around 40 persons from various organisations participated in the event. EFOR plans to provide a written summary of the discussion. The recorded expert forum online debate can be viewed on Youtube.