International Foundation for Electoral Systems should not be unnecessarily strict or prescriptive, as different claims call for different levels of scrutiny and investigation.99 Laws should be flexible enough to account for this difference and other considerations at play, such as a heavy caseload on the EMB or resources available to investigate claims.100 V. Conclusion Contentious challenges to election results are not a strictly new phenomenon; however, candidates around the world are approaching these disputes in more sophisticated ways that increasingly complicate the jobs of EMBs and adjudicators. The rapid pace of change in information technology has also created new vulnerabilities to electoral integrity that EMBs, investigators and courts are generally not prepared to address in election annulment cases. In many cases, legal frameworks are not clear on when the annulment of results is an available remedy, which makes the outcome of challenges to results more difficult to predict and also, perhaps, less definitive from a political point of view. Courts and other election adjudicators may also be unprepared for the complexity, short timelines, and intense public scrutiny that characterize challenges to election results. Against that backdrop, the focus of most election administrators on Election Day is, reasonably, on polling and collecting and announcing electoral results, and they may not be thinking about how their actions might be challenged in the following days. Every jurisdiction should clearly define what is required to annul an election before the election process begins. Countries must determine if they will apply a prescriptive approach, in which annulment depends on the presence of certain kinds of irregularity, without regard to their impact on the outcome of the election; an outcome-determinative approach, in which fraud or irregularities can lead to the annulment of an election, if they affect the result of the election (i.e., the allocation of mandates); or make a determination of the approach depending on the nature of the irregularity in question. Once the fundamental annulment threshold is defined, other core questions must be answered to address who holds the burden of proof, if there are instances when this burden will shift to the state, which standard of evidence will apply, how investigations will take place, what type of evidence will be required, and the timeline by which all parties must abide. Amid the backdrop of increasing global challenges to democracy, election contestation has become more common, and losing candidates are increasingly sophisticated in their efforts to cast doubt on election results. This raises a fundamental question with respect to petitions seeking an annulment of an election outcome: when is an election good enough? To be able to respond effectively to this question, election administrators and election dispute adjudicators must clearly define why and how elections will be annulled before elections take place and provide training and education of stakeholders in the process. This is an essential step toward building trust in election results and responding to the new challenges faced by election dispute adjudicators. 99 Ibid. Ibid. 100 24