egypt-final-presidential-elections-2012

The Carter Center
Presidential Election in Egypt
population, including social media. Given the
crucial importance of voter education on election
day itself, The Carter Center recommends that
future training of poll workers emphasizes the
importance of displaying voter information
materials prominently at polling stations and
polling centers.
15. Further enhance the transparency of the polling,
counting, and aggregation processes.
The Carter Center commends Egyptian lawmakers
and policymakers for the steps they have taken to
enhance the transparency of the electoral process,
particularly through the amendment of Articles
30 and 38 of the Law Regulating the Presidential
Election. The introduction of these amendments
imposes a higher standard of transparency than
was applied during the People’s Assembly elections,
where the announcement of results at
the polling-station and governorate level was
left to the discretion of the presiding judges
and committees.
More, however, should be done to increase
transparency, including the following:
• The EMB should publish the official vote count
results at the polling-station level and DGC
level as soon as is practical, in order to build
public confidence in the final results. This is a
commonly followed international good practice
that is recognized as important for ensuring
transparency and which promotes confidence in
the credibility of the election results.
• District General Committees (DGCs), when
conducting tabulation, should undertake this
task in a setting that allows for meaningful
witnessing of its activities by candidate agents,
election witnesses, and media representatives.
Particularly during the first round of the
presidential election, Carter Center witnesses
reported that in many instances they were
unable to observe tabulation of votes by DGCs
due to factors such as the poor physical layout
of the rooms where this important activity was
taking place.
• The EMB should consider issuing results at
different stages of the process, clearly designated
as preliminary (during or after the initial tabulation
of results) and later, provisional (awaiting
the outcome of any appeals that may affect the
results), before announcing the final results.
In this way, speculation might be dampened,
without compromising the authority of the
EMB on the final outcome. As noted above, the
EMB should provide public access to decisions
on all complaints in order to clarify and explain
any discrepancies between the provisional and
final results.
• Finally, The Carter Center strongly urges future
EMBs to ensure that candidate agents, witnesses,
and media are granted adequate access to the
final tabulation of votes at the national level.
Failing to do so inevitably casts doubt on the
credibility of the electoral process as a whole.
16. Enforce campaign finance laws and regulations.
The PEC lacked the resources to conduct investigations
into alleged campaign finance violations.
As of the date of this report, public information
has not been released regarding investigations by
any Egyptian governmental entity of any alleged
campaign finance violations. The Carter Center
urges future EMBs to establish a well-staffed
division to adequately investigate and prosecute,
or refer for prosecution, campaign finance violations,
including allegations related to in-kind
donations and campaign spending by people
or entities unaffiliated with campaigns. All
campaigns should be required to report both the
identity of all donors and the amounts donated,
and these reports should be made public on a
frequent, periodic basis. All campaigns should be
clearly required to submit to an audit soon after
election day, and these results should be made
public. Finally, The Carter Center suggests that
lawmakers consider increasing the maximum
spending limits for all campaigns, to reduce
incentives to skirt spending limits.
73