As the Declaration of Global Principles for Non-Partisan Election Observation and Monitoring By Citizen Organizations (DoGP) acknowledges, genuine democratic elections are the peoples’ expression of sovereignty and a right of citizens. Nonpartisan citizen election monitoring enhances election integrity, promotes public confidence in the legitimacy of results, holds governments accountable, contributes to safeguarding genuine elections and mitigates potential conflicts. For their work promoting democratic and inclusive processes and government accountability as well as protecting civil and political rights, election observers have been recognized as human rights defenders by the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights defenders and on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association as well as by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

However, the rights of election observers have come under growing pressure from authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes seeking to limit transparency and stifle criticism of electoral irregularities. In an increasing number of countries, citizen observer groups are facing legal, procedural, operational, and coercive restrictions that hinder or entirely prevent their efforts to promote electoral integrity.

GNDEM aims to continue to highlight the issue by documenting cases and continuing research on observer rights to better understand the specific and comparative barriers that affect observers’ ability to do their work, similarities and differences within and among regions, and how observers can defend their rights. The documentation and research will inform GNDEM and its regional networks’ advocacy and communications strategies around the protection of observer rights and resource development, as well as serve as a valuable resource for the rest of the elections and democracy community on the challenges to observer rights globally. This page serves as an ongoing compilation of violations of citizen observer rights around the world in 2024, thus far.

Violation Types Date Region Country Description Link
Violence, Intimidation, and Coercion January 2024 Central and Eastern Europe Serbia Ruling party politicians called for banning CRTA and the arrest of its leaders. Government officials questioned the group's funding and accused them of misleading the public. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions February 2024 Eurasia Azerbaijan The CEC reduced the transparency of the accreditation processes by making it unclear as to who was allowed to observe. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions March 2024 Central and West Africa Nigeria The INEC said it will no longer register CSOs to monitor future elections if they do not submit observation reports following their observation of elections. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions March 2024 Southern and East Africa Mozambique Centre for Public Integrity (CIP) was refused accreditation to report on voter registration. Link
Procedural and Operation Restrictions April 2024 Southern and East Africa Mozambique CIP correspondents were refused access to registration posts as election officials claimed their accreditation badges were "not enough." Link
Violence, Intimidation, and Coercion April 2024 Asia Pakistan Security/presiding officers barred observers from entering 19 pollling stations. Link
Violence, Intimidation, and Coercion May 2024 Eurasia Azerbaijan Anar Mamadli, head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS), was arrested and imprisoned without a trial on politically-motivated charges. Link
Legal May 2024 Eurasia Russia "Foreign Agents Law" passed banning "foreign agents" from serving as election observers. Link
Violence, Intimidation, and Coercion May 2024 Central and Eastern Europe Serbia A member of parliament posted personally identifiable information of multple CRTA members, obtained without authorization, from the Local Election Commission. Link
Legal May 2024 Eurasia Georgia "Foreign Agents Law" passed by legislature requiring non-governmtal orgnizations that recieve 20% of their funding from abroad to register as "organizations acting in the interst of a foreign power," and submit themselves to stringent audits, or face punitive fines. Link
Freedom of Expression and Information July 2024 Latin America and Caribbean Venezuela CNE refused to release precint-by-precinct poll results, in violation of election law. Link
Legal August 2024 Latin American and Caribbean Venezuela National Assembly passed a bill requiring NGOs to report whether they receive foreign funding. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions August 2024 Middle East and North Africa Tunisia I Watch refused accreditation by the ISIE to observe the election. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions September 2024 Eurasia Azerbaijan Observers threatened by law enforcement agencies questioned by the CEC about their intentions to monitor the elections when attempting to register. An observer was later banned from leaving the country. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions September 2024 Middle East and North Africa Tunisia Mourakiboun refused accreditation by the ISIE to observe the election. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions September 2024 Eurasia Georgia Anti-Corruption Bureau attempted to bar TI Georgia from being acredited as nonpartisan observers by delcaring them "political actors," and decision was changed at the request of the Prime Minister. Link
Procedural and Operational Restrictions October 2024 Southern and East Africa Mozambique A Provincial Elections Commission failed to issue credentials for most election observers within the legal deadline. Link