IFES Practitioner Brief on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Elections way to resolve disputes instead of filing before the courts. But the law was silent about these complaint centers (beyond the general EDR mandate of the EC), and they were established with no mandate to adjudicate complaints or impose sanctions or remedies. Instead, election officials engage in discussion and mediate disputes raised by voters or parties and, as needed, refer complaints to the police. To date, Complaints Management Centers lack unified rules and timelines for handling complaints. In 2019, the EC made progress with the adoption of rules and voter education materials on how to file complaints. However, in its report on the 2019 elections, the EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) noted a lack of follow-up information about the outcomes of complaints and recommended that the EC issue clear, codified procedures and coordinate recordkeeping by the various bodies involved. A lack of clear rules, as well as vulnerabilities in the design and execution of EDR mechanisms, can lead to ad hoc and inconsistent dispute resolution in practice and blur the line between formal EDR and informal ADR. For the 2021 elections in Ethiopia, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) was mandated to establish Grievance Hearing Committees (GHCs) at all levels, from local to national. However, the GHCs were not established in most constituencies or in polling stations during the 2021 elections, due partly to the difficulty of finding thousands of volunteers willing to serve on them in an unpaid capacity. Furthermore, the NEBE did not finalize and adopt procedures for its own handling of disputes, and Parliament did not approve the draft regulation for the courts’ handling of electoral disputes. In the absence of a fully functioning EDR system, NEBE and political parties used a variety of ad hoc methods to resolve disputes. The disadvantages of informal or ad hoc dispute resolution are that it may provide inconsistent outcomes for different parties (leading to claims of bias) and can lack transparency—unless the EMB publishes information about decisions taken. In some cases, parties raised complaints directly with NEBE headquarters, which resolved complaints informally (for example, by extending deadlines for voter and candidate registration, or by clarifying guidelines). The Political Parties Joint Forum coordinated by the NEBE was also a useful space for dialogue and dispute resolution, but in other cases, parties took cases to court for formal resolution with varying degrees of success. The disadvantages of informal or ad hoc dispute resolution are that it may provide inconsistent outcomes for different parties (leading to claims of bias) and can lack transparency—unless the EMB publishes information about decisions taken. It may also be unclear to those parties whose complaints were dealt with informally that they have a right to appeal the resolution to court and that they need a written decision to appeal. Another potential disadvantage of an ad hoc approach is that some parties may not have had the knowledge or established relationships to raise disputes informally with NEBE headquarters, and, therefore, may have felt they had no option but to use the slower and more costly route of a court challenge. It is also important to be aware of the risk of forum-shopping if multiple routes of dispute resolution are available to a party. Some ADR mechanisms, such as arbitration or mediation, can include a binding resolution, as in Ethiopia; however, the parties involved in the dispute should expressly agree to that, or it should be clear in the rules of the ADR body. While binding decisions can offer legal protections, a non-binding ADR resolution, if supported by political and social pressure, can be more effective than a binding decision that has a poor enforcement mechanism. It is important for the parties to the dispute to understand and consent to the use of ADR, knowing that it will issue a binding decision. 32