Transcript
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Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Democracy Volunteers podcast. I am your host, Joshua Paisley. In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on the organisation, explaining who we are, what we do and why we do it.
Speaker: Joining me to answer these big questions today is Director of Democracy Volunteers, John Ault and Deputy Director, Harry Bush. Firstly, John, how are you guys doing?
Speaker: Very well, thanks. Very good, thank you Josh. Yep, all very good, thank you. Good to be here. Moving to you first, John, can you please explain for our new listeners what Demoxi Volunteers actually actually does?
Speaker: Well, um our objective is to observe elections. It might seem a very obvious answer, but what does that actually mean? We follow an international standard for assessing how elections work, and what we do is we've Our primary objective is to go into polling stations and evaluate the process, but we also look at the wider um aspects of elections where we assess if they will function properly. We talk to administrators, we talk to the Electoral Commission, we talk to people, actually practitioners in elections to try and evaluate what the strengths are about our electoral systems our electoral system, what the weaknesses are. And then we compare that to watch what actually happens in polling stations. So when we send groups of two around the country using international standards for election observation, we check simple things like our ballot box is actually properly sealed. That might seem an obvious question, but that's one of the things we do. We assess disability access. We assess whether people are being checked properly with their voter ID, all sorts of things like that.
Speaker: We compare it to what's supposed to happen and then we report on it to the public and also the electoral authorities as well. I guess moving to Harry, that this um why is this important to observe elections, especially when our elections are already regulated?
Speaker: Yeah, so one of the the sort of primary functions of us as a domestic election observation group is to act as the public's eyes and ears inside, not just polling stations, but across the whole electoral cycle. um And as a smaller sort of domestic group, depending on the country that we're observing in, we do have to sort of pick and choose where we can allocate our resources. If you look at some of the really big international groups like the OSCE, the European Union, the African Union, when they're doing their observations, um they will have the ability to to do lots of different things. So whether that's media monitoring, looking at candidate nominations, post-election disputes, um we tend to to focus more on the areas, particularly when we're in the UK, um areas that we've seen as either historical challenges um or things that are that are new challenges normally based off new legislation that's come in. But fundamentally, we are an independent group made up of not always citizens of the UK. We have lots of international observers who come and observe with us as well. But a group of individuals who are concerned or want to be able to check that elections are being run properly. And it's a really good check and balance um on assessing how the process is working. And the role that we have
Speaker: in the UK or when we do our observations in other sort of advanced democracies like the Netherlands or Scandinavian countries um isn't necessarily too to always try and identify cases of electoral fraud, which are luckily ah quite rare in those contexts. But we also act as another pair of eyes to be able to to see what improvements can be made for voters, for improving accessibility, for administrators as well, who have the job of actually running elections on the ground to try and see what improvements can be made to to make their jobs easier. And we bring a different perspective to the to the sort of issue in the way that the Electoral Commission obviously do their post-election reports, and there are lots of
Speaker: people in media and academia who look at things like campaign finance and all of those different types of issues. But we bring a different set of expertise from looking at elections all across Europe and all around the world to sort of see how different best practices can be brought in and make sure that international standards as well as domestic laws are being followed at election time. and i guess Much better answer than I gave.
Speaker: Well, we're coming back to you, John. So I guess... One thing that you've touched on there, Harry, is actually the international aspect of democracy volunteers and something having observed in the Netherlands, actually, that's such an amazing experience. I'm wondering, I guess, for John and Harry, how observing in these different countries has actually changed your perception of electoral systems. And just on the floor, how how different is it going to a polling station in Finland than in the UK, for example?
Speaker: Well, is that to me, Josh? I mean, yes yes I think... one of the things that I find interesting about going to other countries to observe their processes is actually, i don't know what you think, Harry, but they're all pretty much the same process. You sort of identify, I mean, 90% of it is pretty much the same.
Speaker: But quite often the things that you learn are the bits that are different. So, for example, when we go to the Netherlands, as you know, there are two things that stand out in particular. One of which is that their ballot paper is the size of you know an old map that used to find your way to the south of France for your holidays. It's enormous. it's It's basically World Cup wall chart, as we've just had the World Cup, where you used to stick you put any stickers on. It's exactly like that.
Speaker: um And it's too big. They even a bit that, which is why their ballot boxes are the size of... They are dustbins. They are wheelie bins. um And they're trying to look at new ways of voting. and And one of the things that we noticed in Finland is they have a pretty much a similar system.
Speaker: So they've adopted to try and find out if they can use the same system where instead of having a ballot paper the size of the World Cup ball chart, they just write in the number of the candidate they want, which is what Finland does using a very similar system. The second thing about the Netherlands is obviously we have postal voting, proxy voting in the yeah UK. But what are the things we identify as being a problem with the Dutch system is that they allow on-demand proxy voting on the day, where you could effectively just fill in your polling card, give it to somebody else, usually a family member, obviously, and they go and vote on your behalf.
Speaker: Now, we find that a very strange concept in the UK because those processes are quite formalised. And the pushback you get from the Dutch is, well, that's our traditions. Well, not all tradition works perfectly. In an age where people are overtly distrusting of elections, where international media and sort of, you know, new media questions the process, I think those sorts things are where challenges exist. And so I think one of the things we do, as well as helping those other countries on how to improve their elections, we also come back with ideas that we've acquired, stolen, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker: And recommend those ideas in the UK as well, because you learn things from different processes. So that's why we do it, because we find out how other places do it. But I think, know what Harry thinks, but elections are pretty much the same wherever you go. It's just the kit that's used, the process, who's running it, how many people are running They're all pretty much the same.
Speaker: Except, you mean I mean, don't know what you think, but our system is is quite old fashioned. You know, you have a piece of paper and a pencil, which I think most people think these days is pretty analog compared to other countries. You go to the United States and quite a lot of it's, you know, computerized or machine. And we find that quite alien.
Speaker: That leads to problems they have. Our system appears to have fewer problems because it's a fairly, well, like I said, analog process. And then, ah yeah, Josh, I would just sort of add, I mean, the the first thing that I would say is we're obviously all biased here, having done international observations, and they're they're an incredibly interesting thing to do, just from a personal level, to go and sort of see a different country and see a different way that elections are run. And as John mentions, it's quite often a little bit of a reflection of the history and the culture of a country as to how they actually work these processes, whether it's you know electoral systems, but also sometimes if I know we're looking at the UK and the Netherlands a little bit here, in terms of the the blind spots sometimes that countries have with their abidance by international standards. and So the Organisation for Security and Cooperation that conducts election observations across countries Europe, Central Asia and North America doesn't send large teams to to countries like the UK and the Netherlands, which is one of the reasons that we think it's really important to have domestic groups um operating and and being strong sort of in their place in addition to their reports. um But John's mentioned the the levels of on demand proxy voting in the Netherlands, which the OSCE's talked about. We would talk about maybe something in the UK like prisoners voting rights, where there's sort of a historical and a cultural approach to those issues in elections. But it's really important that as domestic observers, we're also pointing out that these don't meet international standards that we've signed up to. um
Speaker: There are really big differences in terms of the experience that an observer can have and the level of challenges that you're likely to observe, sort of more specifically for short term observers. So those observers going out on the day and in the days around polling day, um the difference between observing an election in the UK or observing an election in Georgia or Serbia where there are larger challenges in terms of the integrity of polling stations. um
Speaker: i was once at an election in Bosnia where there were results being fabricated in the polling station count that I was in in front of me that you would never see. in the United Kingdom. So there are obviously different levels of issues that you see, but because you have that framework for um how all countries have have sort of agreed through things like the Council of Europe's Venice Commission on how elections should be run, obviously the the sort of boundaries of that are fairly liberal in terms of, you know, it doesn't sort of specify an electoral system or specify exactly how you should conduct a count or those kinds of specifics. um But it does mean that you are looking for similar issues. It's just the likelihood of those more serious issues coming up on throughout your election change quite a lot. and So although there will be you know potentially issues with ah media bias in a Western country, the state capture of media in different countries might be on a completely different level and require a lot more attention if some of those more basic and fundamental ah human rights and sort of society is at a different stage of
Speaker: sort of progress, democratic progress than others. and But as John says, quite a lot of the issues are the same. And Harry, you touched on your experiences of being an observer. And actually, when you do see things that go wrong, as both John and you've said, your eyes on the wall at the end of the day. So how do you kind of have that conflict between you've seen something wrong and you want to say something about it?
Speaker: Do you say that in the moment? Or how do you actually get that information to the officials that can make a change? So it's a really interesting question. um In general, as election observers, and we are, as as we said at the beginning, what it says on the tin, and we observe, we report back our findings through a final report, normally sort of six weeks um after an election. There's been a recent change in the the guidance from the Electoral Commission for Election Observing in the UK specifically, which where significant issues have to be brought to the attention of presiding officers um on the spot inside polling stations. um So that's slightly different to a lot of the work that you would do in other jurisdictions. um
Speaker: For example, if you're on an OSCE observation or you're observing with us in the Netherlands or so on and so forth, we would normally feed back those issues that we were seeing to returning officers to the ministry, responsible and so on. But it is quite a difficult thing to to see things that aren't necessarily being done correctly. But fundamentally, we're there to assess the election in terms of domestic and international laws um or international standards and then report back on that so we are non-interventionist outside of those few sort of examples of of jurisdictions like the UK where there's specific guidance because all of our observers are officially accredited with the electoral commission through their election observer scheme and we abide by their their code of conduct so there's a slight difference there compared to what we would do in in other countries
Speaker: And I guess that's why we send out hundreds of observers so we can kind of get a mass of data to actually look at these these problems in detail. I guess back to John, but Democracy Volunteers has recently celebrated its 10th birthday.
Speaker: What was, thinking about the origins of the organisation, what was a specific problem or moment that you saw in our electoral system that kind of gave birth to the organisation?
Speaker: I don't think there was one particular event. I think When we started off, um essentially it was a university project to identify what the problems of the UK elections were.
Speaker: And not that long before, the UK had set up the Electoral Commission, not that long to ago, and they had a system for allowing election observation. And we thought this would be something that it something that was completely underused at the time.
Speaker: It was just something that was set up you know to to welcome international visitors to go into polling stations. What some of our observers sometimes call the champagne and sushi tour, where they get taken by the Foreign Office into a few nice polling stations in Westminster and Kensington on polling day to show them the process. Now, as much as that has its benefits to show other countries what we do and how we do it, obviously,
Speaker: the problem with any election is they're not perfect. And so we just went to a few elections and so identified that not everything is perfect. So we thought, well, hang on. um If everything's not perfect, then this is something where it's important that election observers have a role in the process. And at the time, a few years before, I chaired the Electoral Reform Society, and they're responsible for an organisation called ERIS, and they coordinated UK's involvement in election observation.
Speaker: And I went on a mission to Kazakhstan in January, I think in 2011. And trust me, Kazakhstan in January ah in 2011 is cold, very cold.
Speaker: And I looked at what they did and I looked at the OSCE methodology and thought this is something that really our elections could benefit from. Because as much as obviously we don't expect similar processes and similar challenges as you see in places like Kazakhstan, I think every election requires the public to have trust in it.
Speaker: And there is a high degree of trust in UK elections, but I think the purpose of election observation is to, as Harry says, put the public's input into the process.
Speaker: And, you know, our observers are not, you know, all terribly important legislators and things like this. It's actually just the public getting involved as volunteers in assessing the process. So that's why we set it up because we thought actually,
Speaker: elections aren't perfect and we need to make sure they're as good as possible and the public has the right to be involved in that. This is the system by which they can do it. So that's how we started and we started doing quite small deployments. I seem to remember it was in South Wales the first one we went to and then we went to a by-election in Tooting and then there were all sorts of other electoral events and and gradually we seem to be turning up to every election there ever is now, don't we Harry? Because it's important that We have our say and we reflect the things that we find.
Speaker: and I guess my my next question was going to talk about the evolution of democracy volunteers. And I guess you've touched on it, keeping that same that same theme. Would you talk about the evolution just kind of, I'd say, going to more elections and getting bigger? Or is there any kind of particular issues that democracy volunteers has identified over the course of these 10 years?
Speaker: Well, I think there are several, and and and our work has changed because obviously elections don't, although I've talked about how elections are still quite analogue with a piece of paper and a pencil, actually there are often new ways of doing elections.
Speaker: So one of the key things that's happened over the last few years is the introduction of the requirement to show ID to vote. And so we went to the pilots on how they were that were introducing it. We went to the first elections where they introduced it. And we now see elections where it's used in one context, namely England in this year's elections, but not in Scotland and Wales. So you see elections developing, so our observation develops.
Speaker: As you know, another the challenges we see is where individuals don't have the right to vote independently. And we want to make sure that everyone has the right to vote independently. And the data we've collected over the years has contributed towards producing the Ballot Secrecy Act in 2023 introduced by Lord Hayward, which tried to ensure that people have the right to vote independently in polling stations. Now, that's a key aspect of our work is that we've seen that this is not this is one of the the weaknesses of our system and something that we really need to improve. But there are other things as well which aren't directly associated with polling day that we've looked at. We've looked at how um
Speaker: Candidates have been threatened and in the last general election we looked at, and some of some students from Arches University researched into that. We've also looked at disability access. We can meet we sort of worked with is it London Vision, I think, Harry, wasn't it, to assess whether aspects the voting process were accessible to people with limited sight or who were blind. And one of the things that most people don't realise, and something I learned at the time, Harry, was that Although quite often people are designated as blind, not everyone has complete lack of sight. So actually improved lighting in polling stations would help. And so we checked the lighting level. So the answer is observation isn't just a sort of, although there are often things that you constantly look at, like accessibility, like and whether the ballot the box is sealed, are the staff in place, things like that, the obvious stuff. actually it's important that observation reflects the change in where the elections work. So that's how it evolves. It's by looking at different aspects as they emerge or as things occur to us. Because, you know, it's not impossible that someone comes back from observation and say, I saw this. What are you doing about yeah And you that's a good idea. We'll look into that.
Speaker: And Harry, do you second that kind of evolution? Yeah, so I think that there's, over the last 10 years, there's been the sort of expansion of the work of the organisation in a couple of different ways. The first one is is what John mentioned, talking about looking at more areas of the electoral process. So during campaigning threats to candidates, John's mentioned, but we've also looked at issues around the funding of local councils' election departments and how it's not sort of where it needs to be um because a lot of of councils don't have enough staff to be able to to deliver elections in a way that they would want to deliver them. and Almost everyone working in elections wants them to be as perfect as they can be, but they're restrained by the funding that they have. So we've looked at at that side as well and lots of other issues outside of polling day.
Speaker: The other one is that our on-the-day observations have ah grown quite a lot. So when I joined the organisation back in 2019, as John mentioned, we were doing sort of quite small observations and we wanted to make sure that we could get hundreds of observers out on every polling day because one of the benefits that we have and one of the ways that we can be helpful in providing data to interlocutors like the Electoral Commission and the Association for Electoral Administrators and back to councils departments is that on election day
Speaker: they're incredibly busy doing lots and lots of things. They can't necessarily visit 2000 polling stations across the country and gather these big data sets on how elections are actually being run on the ground. And so I think that there was that expansion in terms of the amount of observers that we have on any one polling day um and looking across the electoral cycle, as well as continuing to sort of improve the knowledge of all of our observers, particularly our longer term observers and core team members of different contexts and how these processes work in different countries.
Speaker: I think that the way that we work will continue to evolve, you know, since we've started ah since we've been doing this work, we've had the Elections Act in 2022, which changed lots of things like voter ID, but also the expansion of the franchise for more overseas um overseas citizens of the UK.
Speaker: um And there will always be these types of things, whether Ballot Secrecy Act, um that we start to to look at in more depth to try and assess how elections are are performing to in terms of those domestic laws.
Speaker: And it's an exciting time to to be looking at the way elections are working across the UK. We obviously have now the prospect of 16, 17 year olds being able to vote, um potential changes to the list of prescribed documents in terms of IDs. um And as John mentioned before, the different jurisdictions across the UK having slightly different rules, depending on what level of election they are, is something that that we look into as well. So there will always be changes in the way that elections are being run based on the legislation that that's being put forward. But I think as long as we can try to to maintain a high number of observers who can collect high quality data, which we can use to try and have a positive impact on raising issues and concerns, and then being dealt with appropriately by administrators and people in this space, I think that that that's the way that well we'll continue to go in the future.
Speaker: I guess moving back to the volunteer, I guess we'll go to Harry first, where over the past decade or since 2019, you've seen your fair share of observers. And I would anyone who's listening to this, I'd really it'd be amazing to get as much people observing with us because it is not just an amazing thing to do, but a really fun day.
Speaker: I was wondering what makes the best observer? What kind of attributes and what things are you looking for? So yeah, it's a really good question. um And yeah, I would definitely echo that if if there is somebody who is interested in elections and election integrity, being an election observer, obviously we're biased, come with democracy volunteers. But if you're not in the yeah UK or you can't get to the UK with the OSCE, the European Union, the African Union, Agora, if you're a young person, all of these different bodies that that do this kind of work. um
Speaker: In terms of what is sort of needed from an observer, it will depend slightly as to to what role they're looking to do on an observation mission. um There are lots of roles in sort of core teams and longer term observers that go into a little bit more specific expertise in in an area like the the legislation of the country or the media profile and those kinds of things. But the best place to sort of start out with is as a short term observer on election day, going out and collecting data. And you're right. I mean, yeah over the last seven years, we've had lots and lots of people who have come and observed with us. And and the the best quality that they all have is that they're able to go out on on the day into to real world situations in polling stations and accurately collect data without any bias to work constructively with their observation partner. um There is part of it which is just having the willpower to get through a 15 hour polling day. It's an incredibly long day. and That's why it's it's very useful if you find observing the process and the way that things work interesting. If you're not interested in elections, I would say probably don't be an election observer, you might find it quite dull.
Speaker: um But they all have the ability to to conduct their work in a completely non-partisan way without any bias or prejudice. um And they have an ability to to work constructively with their election observation partner. But that is obviously, as you can imagine, quite quite a broad group of people. I mean, we have everybody from students to ambassadors, journalists, to lawyers, all people from different walks of life. And we always try to encourage people to to come and join our observations, no matter what their background is. You don't necessarily before your first short term observation have to have any experience of elections or specifically of observation. And one of our biggest
Speaker: um one of our biggest strengths is that we have people from a very diverse sort of background. And so everybody will be able to identify different challenges in the process that other people may not may not spot because it might not apply to them if they're thinking, okay, if I was going through this process, what would be the barriers for me? What do I think could be improved? um It's not going to be the same for every single person. So the the strength in in our observers who go out on the day is really their their persistence in pushing through the whole day, but also their diversity and their backgrounds and what they can bring to to sort of helping us with formulating recommendations following polling day. Yeah, I know Harry quite often tries to put people with other people they might get on with. I don't think who actually had a wedding yet, have we, Harry, of two observers of getting together? But I'm pretty sure we've got people who've got long lasting friendships from it. Because it is, i mean, throwing two people into a day together and it It generally creates quite a good camaraderie because they end up going to some very interesting places, meeting some very interesting people and and seeing some interesting things as well. But like Harry says, it's a marathon, not a sprint polling day. It's one of those days where, you know, if you come back to it a second time, you've got a degree of masochism, which is probably to be encouraged because it's it's a really interesting process. But you've got to have, as Harry says, persistence and the willingness. of it Quite often, one of our observers will tell us after an election day, I did 13,000 steps today, John, and my usual resume response, or Harry's is, Is that all you should have done more? Because at the end of the day, it is a lot of work, but very rewarding because you get to contribute to the improvement of our elections.
Speaker: And I guess on a practical level for listeners who might want to get involved, what does getting involved actually look like? How how do you start this process? That's for you, Harry, really, isn't it?
Speaker: Yeah, sure. So um we go through different rounds of recruitment for for people. um Obviously, the the elections, if we're just talking about specifically in the UK that we that we observe, tend to happen on the first Thursday in May. And so towards the end of the year before, so normally sort of October, November, December.
Speaker: we will be sort of welcoming people to to sort of apply to become an election observer. There are obviously other opportunities ah ah by elections and when we go internationally that if people want to know about those opportunities, they can sign up to our mailing list, which you'll find if you go to the website at democracyvolunteers.org. But in terms of what to to actually expect, as I mentioned before,
Speaker: Don't be panicked or worried in if you don't have any experience in elections or in election observation or in any sort of associated areas, really. um The process sort of works in a step process. So we have we will ask you for your CV. and We'll have a short sort of introductory chat with one of the team, normally about 20 to 25 minutes, just talking to you a little bit more about what election observation is, asking you a few questions to see whether you're able to to conduct the role. um Obviously, there are some really important things that people have to have, like not being members of political parties and not being politically active that preclude some people from from taking part in observations. And so we make sure that all of those checks are done and that you'll be able to complete the work on the day. um
Speaker: And then in terms of training, we provide you with all the training that you will need. And it's a mixture of online and in-person training. The total amount of time before polling day is normally sort of six to eight hours of training each observer will get. um And you'll have some of dedicated support to to help you through. So that's how the process tends to work over multiple different different sessions before polling day.
Speaker: Lots of real process. Something, think about how observing is changing. Recently at the Paris Call to Action Conference, this conference actually called for the Council of Europe's member states, which the UK is a member of, to recognise the essential role that election observation has in electoral processes.
Speaker: In layman's terms, what does this mean for an observer and how is how will this change observing maybe in different countries or in the UK? Firstly to John. Well, I was at that conference and I was very keen that that was put into the into the sort of memorandum that came at the end of it. I think one of the things that the statements at the end is identified is that election observation isn't a nice to have, it's a need to have as part of the electoral process.
Speaker: And one of the weaknesses of democracy is that they they quite often don't like criticism. the nothing to see here attitude, the everything is perfect in the state of Denmark sort of attitude, which is something that I think we've all got, and our elections are very good, but do we want them to be very good or do we want them to be the best they possibly can be? but Do we want them to be the gold standard around the world that people think that's the best election that goes on?
Speaker: And i think That's why the Council of Europe has said you must make sure that election observation is independent, you must make sure that election observation can be critical of the process, because the problem with speaking truth to power, which is essentially what election observers do, is that power doesn't always like being spoken to and being told how to improve things. And that's why the voice of citizens really matters in this process, because when all said and done,
Speaker: People in London who you know legislate for elections don't own those elections. Political parties don't own them. but Administrators don't own them. They just legislate for them, administer them, and it's us, the public, who actually have to be involved in making those decisions. So there are elections.
Speaker: And so I would, as Harry says, I would encourage anyone to get involved in election observation because it's our voice, it's our chance to get involved in the process as well as voting, because obviously we all get that opportunity, but the issue is more that Democracy is sort of not doing that well around the world at the moment.
Speaker: People are questioning its validity. you know We see all sorts of problems in in what have been considered to be you know the strongest democracies, dropping in no names, and but some of that have been considered really strong democracies, which are now being questioned. And that's why observation matters. And that's why the Council of Europe was arguing it, is that if you want democracy to persist and to to thrive, you can't just allow it to just carry on.
Speaker: you need to make sure you renew it and that's why election observations, part of that communique was essentially saying you need to make sure this is embedded in the process, not just something that's a nice to have. We've got a programme to allow people to do it. you know we we We welcome people on the champagne and sushi tour to take them to two public stations in Westminster or Kensington.
Speaker: and actually allow citizens the opportunity to so to go into public stations so independently verify that process is good and successful and delivers the results that it's supposed to. So that's what the Council of Europe was saying, is and I'm really pleased to see it, because quite often it takes a few people in places like that to say, actually, we need to reflect on this, because the OSCE can't do everything.
Speaker: the EU obviously you know we are actually now back into the process I think I'll be Harry of being involved in EU election observations despite not being in the EU um but the OSCE and so all these other organisations don't have the budget to do everything the OSCE is never going to send a big observation mission to the UK because of finance it's much more likely send people to Bosnia like Harry was saying much more likely send to countries which have developing democracies. So it's sort of incumbent on countries like ours and to people like us to get involved in election observation our own countries and also in our case to actually go to other countries that are Western democracies which also don't get observed by the OSCE. So that's why they argued that is that it's a fundamental part of the process and good on them because that's exactly what I went to try and say to them because
Speaker: we need to make sure that the public is involved in assessing the process and improving the process. And Harry, this Paris call to action, i I guess one of the things that really surprised me when I first became an observer is, as an observer, you're not allowed everywhere and you're not allowed to observe every country. Is this Paris call to action, is that connected to these member states in Europe accepting observers a bit more or is this is this a separate thing?
Speaker: Yes, unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to the conference. and But it's it's obviously one of the one of the key issues in terms of election observation across our continent more more broadly is that there are a significant number of countries in which election election observation either isn't allowed, isn't legislated for, and there's no pathway for domestic election observation, um or that can be determined by more local returning officers as to whether they grant access to either domestic observer groups or some international observer groups. So every country that's that's part of the OSCE will have the OSCE providing, you know, either full-scale election observation missions or things like expert assessments, um different sort of levels of the amount of people and sort of funding that's spent on each election observation, depending on the need of the country. um But I think that what was said at Paris was really that there needs to be
Speaker: greater sort of work put in towards some of the countries that in the past may have thought, well, we don't need election observation. When a lot of these treaties like the Copenhagen document back in the nineteen ninety s were signed because of the historical context of when that was signed, a lot of those um countries that were being sort of not targeted but included as in terms of you need to do this were countries in Eastern Europe, um in the Balkans, all these kinds of areas, and not necessarily on the UK, France, Italy, Spain, so and so forth. And so there is now, as John said, with some of the challenges around public trust in elections,
Speaker: um sort of still being very high in the UK, but the challenges and the threats that posed to certain democracies, and it's more important than ever, I think, for domestic groups to be able to operate in every country across the OSCE because they provide a complementary role to the OSCEs. It's always incredibly useful to have an international group come in from outside and to say what the challenges are, and particularly when they can do full scale missions to be able to to highlight those challenges. But at the end of the day, after their election observation mission, although there are follow up activities, It's going to be the domestic groups who are there on the ground. What happens for the five years or maybe not five years in in the last few years, but what happens to the five years between general elections? What happens to all of the local elections? um Who's actually pushing for those changes in legislation or changes in practice and guidance? And so I think that it's really an acceptance that domestic observers have
Speaker: a slightly different role to play and that going forwards that can work well in line with what the osc is doing and having international and domestic groups operating at the same elections can be a really useful thing well hopefully democracy volunteers will be going to places with slightly better cuisines than they have previously i guess moving on to the Onto the last question. I think the Netherlands has got really good cuisine. it It's not as good as France or Italy. We are non-partisan, so we shouldn't really have a view on this. as you know, Italy, i mean, I have been to a polling station in Italy and had a conversation with a chap outside and he got, I said, look can we just come in and look? And he was very concerned that we might actually get ourselves arrested by going. And so, yeah, I mean, it is interesting how, I mean, I think the example that we often recite, Harry, is actually Ireland, isn't it? Where
Speaker: People who live in the Irish Republic can't observe an election in the Irish Republic, but can just go across the border and observe an an election in Northern Ireland under our system. um And it is a sort of contradiction that, at the end of the day, and it's one of the things I've said at a few conferences, which is we need to make sure that advanced West democracies don't have the attitude of do as I say, not as I do. So it's really good that the UK has an election observation programme. because it's an evidence that it is willing to receive feedback, whether critical or positive, on how to make sure our elections improve.
Speaker: I guess leading on to the final question, the the future ah for democracy volunteers. Moving to you first, John, where firstly where is democracy volunteers observing in the near near future and what kind of aspects are we looking at at the minute?
Speaker: Well, I mean, in terms of our UK annual cycle. We obviously have elections in England and so on next year. We've also got, I think, assembly elections in Northern Ireland. That'll be an interesting election next May.
Speaker: um There are many elections in between. um think we're off to Iceland at the end of August because they have an accession referendum on membership of the European Union, something that actually started, I think, in 2008, but suspended the process because of the financial crisis. um But now they've started that process again and they're looking at joining the EU. So that's something we're going to observe. And in terms of international extra external observations, we're always open to ideas of where we can go because one of the things that we we do, and it's just, as I said before, it's a two-way process.
Speaker: We go there to help them to improve their elections, but we also try to make sure that any ideas they've got, we sort steal and bring back to the UK and make recommendations. one of the things that Harry's been looking at is attestation where somebody can actually say this is my wife, this is my husband, this is somebody I know and actually vouch for them in a polling station which is a system that we we we know exists in Canada but something that could be used in the UK. So that's those sorts of things where essentially we filter ideas and see how they work in practice. um So the answer is we've got elections next May across the UK and we've also got a few international observations going on which the first is in Iceland at the end of August
Speaker: thankfully the weather at the end of August in nice and it's not as bad as it can be.
Speaker: And Harry, would you add anything to the future of democracy volunteers? Yeah, I mean, I would say that the The sort of context in the UK is changing quite a lot at the moment, whether that's the extension of the franchise, 16 17 year olds, it's going to be something that is really important to see how they're able to to interact with processes. Obviously, it's something which has been going on in Wales and Scotland now for many years, um but to make sure that those voters know how to go through the process um and that they're able to to participate in those elections.
Speaker: Also moving on from things in terms of the trials that we've had for advanced voting, the trials that we've had for centralised hubs. So Milton Keynes had a central voting hub at the most recent elections. a number of different councils had early or advanced voting as well and and we were collecting data on it how useful those processes could be going forwards for trying to improve engagement with elections in the yeah UK um which as you'll know Josh is incredibly low, incredibly poor compared to a lot of other countries that we go to ah but also looking at some of the changes that will be coming in around ID and there are lots of other
Speaker: sort of structural changes that we've made recommendations on before, things such as automatic voter registration that can help with accessibility as well. So there are all these different types of issues. um There will unfortunately be the need for ongoing research on the safety of candidates and harassment of candidates, as we've seen sort of only too starkly in the in the last few weeks. um But there will always be these areas where As John mentioned before, our elections are running incredibly well, but there are areas for improvement and we want to try and make sure that we can be a useful sort of voice in this space to be able to say we've been able to collect this unique data from on the ground in polling stations, in counting centres, from doing big pieces of research over many electoral cycles to to add to that debate and to try and make sure that our elections are as secure and accessible as they can be going forwards.
Speaker: ah Well, I think that's all for the Demoxy Volunteers podcast episode. A huge thank you to John and Harry for taking their time to share the who, what and why behind the organisation. If today's conversation has made you think differently about elections or made you want to see one up close for yourself, head to demoxyvolunteers.org to find out how to get involved as an observer.
Speaker: I'm your host, Joshua Paisley. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Thank you.
