Is American election practice applicable in other countries?

Is the US experience in the field of elections applicable in other countries and what are the benefits of American electoral traditions? What rules are necessary for elections to be recognized as democratic?

Answering these questions of Turan agency correspondent, David Becker, founder of the Center for Innovation and Election Research, said that there are several such elements.

“But  I think there has to be from the candidate side. A fair ballot access, so there’s competition. There needs to be. It needs to be easy and convenient for eligible voters to participate.

There needs to be information available that voters can choose to educate themselves about the candidates and process. Transparency throughout the process is crucial, meaning, and we have this in the United States.

Everywhere in the United States, observers from the political parties, from the candidates and campaigns can be in polling places. They can be in areas where votes are being counted. They can be virtually everywhere so long as they Maintain their distance from the process and don’t interfere with the process.  And that’s very, very important.

There have been claims in the United States that observers were not allowed to watch elements of the process, and those claims are all false everywhere that everywhere in the country the process can be reviewed. You can even, for instance, the machines are all tested through public testing. That occurs a few weeks before the election, and it’s fairly boring, but and it’s rare that someone shows up and watches that people, anyone in the public won’t watch those kinds of things” – he said.

What recommendations could be made to improve the electoral process in young democracies, in particular in a country like Azerbaijan?

In response to this question, Becker noted that one must be careful when making such recommendations.

“I’m always careful because like I said, our elections are so different in many ways and I think a lot of countries, even if they’re younger democracies, have done a really good job in having transparent, free and fair elections.

I think from a process perspective I think from a process perspective, I think having I do think having a ballot that a voter can actually look at and verify before they cast it is really important I’m  would recommend against going to digital or even in some cases systems that are not digital but don’t create a paper ballot. You need a permanent or close to permanent record, especially in countries that have a secret ballot, which is a best practice as well where that ballot can be reviewed after long after the voter is gone. So I think paper is important.

Our efforts to Combat disinformation. Every democracy in the world, and some to some degree, is facing unprecedented disinformation lies being spread about the process. And in many of those countries, that is coming not only from. Internally but coming from. Adversaries,  enemies overseas from other countries, countries that hate democracy. And we couldn’t. We can all band together better to combat this disinformation. I think we’ve seen the start of that to some degree with the United States and Europe. I think NATO can be a NATO and the EU and others can be incredibly effective in that role. But there are countries, democracies such as. Democracies in Asia and in the Middle East that have suffered some of these same challenges in Africa, certainly in South America. So no one is immune to this. And this is an area in which I think all the world’s democracies could come together and share best practices to combat  these attacks”, - he said.