Assessing Electoral Fraud in New Democracies: Refining the Vocabulary III. IFES’ Definition We have arrived at important distinctions between electoral fraud, electoral malpractice and systemic manipulation25 in an effort to: clarify questions raised; address comments from election practitioners and academics regarding our original definition for electoral fraud; and make reference to the legal usage of the terms by the election community. This paper focuses specifically on tools that practitioners can use to deter, detect and mitigate fraud and malpractice within a country’s established electoral framework. Therefore, we will not discuss systemic manipulation or the tools to confront this manipulation in Figure 1. The Electoral Malpractice-Fraud further detail.26 The remaining distinction between fraud Spectrum and malpractice is depicted in Figure 1. The overlapping area between these two concepts represents criminal malpractice (i.e., malpractice by an official that is so egregious that it rises to the level of fraud despite the lack Malpractice Fraud of intent). These distinctions are useful for providing clarity in discussions and for assisting election stakeholders in developing practical tools to address fraud and malpractice Criminal Malpractice that have adverse effects on the electoral process. Our proposed working definition for electoral fraud is deliberate wrong-doing by election officials or other electoral stakeholders, which distorts the individual or collective will of the voters. While fraud by this definition refers to deliberate or intentional acts by a range of stakeholders, we have also found that it is necessary to apply a heightened standard specifically to election professionals. These individuals are employed to protect the integrity of the electoral process and should be held accountable for unintentional breaches as well. As we will discuss, when election professionals are negligent, they have committed malpractice, not fraud. The duty of care concept is sufficiently nuanced to distinguish among election workers at different levels and with varying levels of education and training, such that the commissioner of an EMB would have a much different duty of care requirement than a poll-worker appointed on an ad hoc basis. Duty of care is a concept familiar to many professions, especially those governed by a professional association (such as doctors). It has not been frequently attributed to election professionals, although there does exist a growing body of consensus about what constitutes appropriate professional behavior for election officials. This is often codified in codes of conduct and professional training programs. For 25 In an American courtroom, the actions of responsible officials (including corporate officers and public officials) that run contrary to a duty of care might be characterized as malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance. Despite definitional distinctions between each of these terms, which we will not address here, the burden on a plaintiff or prosecutor in a claim of injury is to prove that the defendant acted contrary to his or her duty of care (as well as to prove that the defendant had a duty of care to which he or she should be held). To avoid confusion in non-U.S. settings, we have chosen to use the term “malpractice,” which is favored by many authors who are writing on the subject of electoral integrity. 26 Systemic manipulation, supra note 2. 9