Domestic Monitoring and Vote Count Verification

Our Capabilities

DI provides technical assistance for domestic election monitoring, including programs focused on Election Day monitoring, parallel vote tabulations (PVTs) or quick counts, voter registration audits (VRAs), and voter attitude surveys (VASs). We have helped launch and have advised nonpartisan domestic election monitoring organizations around the world.
In the late 1980s, DI Principal Glenn Cowan invented the path-breaking, sample-based PVT election-monitoring methodology, which is now an institutionalized component of rigorous election monitoring, to deter or detect fraud in the aggregation (“tabulation”) of election results. He is co-author of The Quick Count and Election Observation (National Democratic Institute, 2002). DI Principal Eric Bjornlund wrote a comprehensive study of election monitoring, Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy.

Our Experience

  • Afghanistan, Election Reform and Civil Society Advocacy (2010)
  • Sudan, Domestic Election Monitoring, Parallel Vote Tabulation, and Voter Registration Audit (2010)
  • Cote d’Ivoire, Technical Assistance to Domestic Election Monitoring Organizations (2010)
  • Vote Count Verification Study (2006-10)
  • Ecuador, Advice on Parallel Vote Tabulation (2009)
  • Albania, Parallel Vote Tabulation (2009)
  • Ghana, Parallel Vote Tabulation and Voter Registration Audit (2008)
  • Pakistan, Domestic Election Monitoring and Parallel Vote Tabulation (2007-08)
  • Haiti, Parallel Vote Tabulation (2005)
  • Mozambique, Parallel Vote Tabulations (2003, 2004)
  • Ukraine, Parallel Vote Tabulation (2004)
  • Belarus, Parallel Vote Tabulation (2004)
  • Georgia, Parallel Vote Tabulation (2003)
  • Macedonia, Parallel Vote Tabulation (2002)
  • Indonesia, Parallel Vote Tabulations/Quick Counts (1999, 2004)
  • Cambodia, Domestic Election Monitoring (1997-98, 2002)
  • Thailand, Domestic Election Monitoring (1994, 1998, 2000)
  • Indonesia, Domestic Election Monitoring (1998-2000)
  • Slovakia, Parallel Vote Tabulation (1998)
  • Ghana Parallel Vote Tabulation (1996)
  • Peru, Parallel Vote Tabulation (1994-95)
  • Nepal, Domestic Election Monitoring (1994)
  • Mexico Parallel Vote Tabulations (1992, 1994)
  • Guyana, Parallel Vote Tabulation (1992)
  • Zambia, Parallel Vote Tabulation (1991)
  • Nicaragua, Parallel Vote Tabulation (1989-90)
  • Panama, Parallel Vote Tabulation (1989)
  • Chile, Parallel Vote Tabulation (1988)
Expertise