The Carter Center is partnering with the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) to integrate their long-term observer efforts, closely coordinating their plans to recruit, train, and deploy long-term observers to assess the electoral process according to a shared assessment methodology. The integrated long-term observation team is composed of 16 long-term observers. They were deployed in teams of two to eight locations around the country on July 22 to assess electoral preparations on the regional and local levels. The observers, who joined a core team of experts who have been based in Tunis since June 10, will work in each of Tunisia’s 27 in-country electoral constituencies.



In addition to its collaboration with EISA, the Center will cooperate with key local stakeholders and other international and domestic citizen observer groups.



The mission will observe and examine key aspects of the electoral process, including the pre-electoral environment, voter registration, candidate registration, campaigning, and campaign finance. Teams of short-term observers and high-level leadership will join the Center’s observation mission to observe voting, counting, and tabulation procedures during the Sept. 15 and Oct. 6 elections. The team also will follow the post-election process, including any legal challenges to the results.



Throughout election season, The Carter Center will issue periodic statements on key findings. At the end of the mission, the Center will provide an independent assessment of the parliamentary and presidential electoral process and its compliance with the country’s international commitments, national law, and standards for democratic elections. All statements and reports will be available at www.cartercenter.org.



The Center's election observation missions are conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, which provides guidelines for professional and impartial international election observation. The declaration was adopted at the United Nations in 2005 and has been endorsed by more than 50 election observation groups.