03/10/2012 Session
Strasbourg, 03.10.2012 – PACE has spelled out a series of specific steps for greater participation, more transparency and stronger supervision of elections across the Council of Europe area.
Approving a report by Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco, EPP/CD), the Assembly – drawing on its experience of observing more than 140 elections to date – said election laws in Europe were a good basis, but ruling parties were failing to implement them fully. Despite “considerable improvements” in recent years, the holding of “free and fair” elections remained a major challenge, it said.
Among other things, the Assembly called for:
• use of proxy, postal and electronic voting, provided the secrecy of the vote can be guaranteed
• limits on campaign and party funding, and transparency on who spends what
• granting legally-recognised migrants and citizens living abroad voting rights
• ending the general, automatic disenfranchisement of prisoners
• mechanisms to promote women’s participation and representation in politics
Voting day and counting violations are more frequent in “new” democracies, whereas problems such as problems with campaign or party funding, biased media or the use of administrative resources also occur in “older” democracies, the parliamentarians pointed out.