Assessing Electoral Fraud in New Democracies: Refining the Vocabulary intent might be unclear or difficult to prove. For example, a trained presiding officer in a given election who ignores highly visible ballot stuffing by party agents that leads to a distorted election result could be prosecuted for criminal malpractice, even if prosecutors or investigators are unable to clearly prove intent to commit fraud by the presiding officer. As discussed, electoral fraud and electoral malpractice each refer to different sets of actors and have different legal characters. As depicted in Figure 1, the overlap between fraud and malpractice refers to a type of malpractice that so grossly deviates from the duty of care that it calls for criminal prosecution. This distinction is included as a variant on the electoral malpractice concept. The respective definitions of each term may be segmented across four dimensions: actors, action, intent (or lack of) and result. In addition, they require different deterrence and mitigation strategies. Figure 2 details the main differences between electoral fraud and malpractice, and notes where the concept of criminal malpractice would be relevant. The range of possible actors is wider for fraud, as it can include any person or group with a stake in the election result. This may include voters, political parties, state officials with election-related duties, candidates and the media, in addition to election workers. The nature of the action and the presence of intent is most significant: fraud is committed deliberately and with intent to interfere with the electoral process (manifested as either an action or an omission, in the case of an actor with official election responsibilities), while malpractice results from carelessness or neglect. A poll worker who places a stack of pre-filled ballots in the ballot box on Election Day has committed fraud; that same polling worker who forgets to attach security seals to a ballot box may have breached his duty of care and committed malpractice. When developing fraud deterrence and mitigation strategies, this is an important distinction, and one which will shape approaches to ensure the integrity of elections. 11