International Foundation for Electoral Systems and Democracy International Adherence to a code of conduct. Election officials should be guided by a code of conduct (CoC) in their daily work. Without such a code, the values and principles underpinning their professional conduct can quickly erode. In Afghanistan, the IEC had established codes of conduct for a wide variety of stakeholders, including the media, observers, political parties, candidates, and candidate agents. The CoC for election officials detailed the principles and behaviors that were expected of an IEC official. As with many developing countries where the rule of law is weak, however, enforcement of such a code is challenging. Accordingly, codes of conduct should clearly set out workable mechanisms for reporting breaches and outline consequences for non-adherence. Codes of conduct used during the electoral process should be reinforced during preparations for an audit. In the Afghanistan audit process, the IEC issued a stand-alone special code of conduct for political party agents and their campaign teams, which was a positive initiative. The Expert Verification Mission tasked with assessing the 2010 Haiti election did not issue a code of conduct, although it stated that its work was based on transparency, impartiality and adherence to the legal framework. 55 Uniform implementation of procedures. Uniformity is one of the most fundamental principles in electoral management, including audit processes. Irrespective of where or by whom a vote is cast, each ballot should be treated in exactly the same way. This means that in an audit each ballot should be investigated using the same procedures, and the decision to include or exclude it should be based on uniformly applied rules. The audit process should accord the same respect for and protection of the rights of individual voters as it does for the interests of candidates. In the 2014 Afghanistan audit, the single most important document guiding the auditors was the 16point checklist agreed upon by the two presidential candidates with the U.S. Secretary of State. However, additional regulations, procedures and training are needed to guide auditors in completing a checklist, in order to reduce subjectivity and ensure uniformity. For example, question 12 of the IEC checklist asked: “Are there identical or significant patterns of the same markings on ballots? If yes, how many?” Detailed information and training was important to identify similarly marked ballot (SMB) papers, as well as to understand what constituted a pattern. As audits are often performed by individuals with vastly different backgrounds, a certain level of subjectivity is inherent to the process. In order to reduce the level of subjectivity across auditing teams, clear and unambiguous guidelines, along with training on those guidelines, are critical. This is particularly true when auditors lack formal education as election auditors and have limited or no previous practical experience in conducting an audit. The less experienced the auditors, the more important it is to provide unambiguous rules and high-quality training. In Afghanistan – due to an urgent focus on operational issues and the transfer of ballots to Kabul – the IEC did not issue at the outset detailed guidelines about the proper chain of custody of evidence and how to deal with fundamental fraud risks such as similarly marked ballots and similarly signed results sheets. Such clear and tangible directions would have helped to prepare auditors to perform fundamental aspects of their audit duties in a standardized manner, and reduce challenges for the IEC down the 15