Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections A related issue is the tendency of developing democracies to criminalize all violations of the election law, including minor electoral misconduct and irregularities in election procedures. That usually forces all election-related complaints and disputes into the court system, which triggers all the requirements of due process (including guarantees of holding hearings) and results in slow adjudication of complaints that should be dealt with more expediently. Relatively minor election misconduct should be treated as non-criminal (administrative) offenses, outside the purview of laws governing criminal electoral offenses. This distinction will permit less burdensome and more expeditious processes for initial review and adjudication, allow for an administrative process to reduce penalties for minor offenses to low monetary fines (or reprimands), promote remedial actions to fix any problems, and encourage admissions by violators (who would be spared a criminal conviction on their record). Codes of Conduct for political parties and candidates, though often advisory, can also be useful in seeking voluntary compliance with norms for campaigning that do not merit codifying into election laws (encouraged by the scrutiny of NGOs, the news media and political competitors). The international democratic development community has begun to recognize that implementation of complaints adjudication systems in the broader electoral context should not be subject to the most rigorous legal standards that apply to serious administrative or criminal cases affecting fundamental rights and the legitimacy of elections. In early 2009, the Carter Center convened a meeting of experts to discuss criteria for assessing electoral dispute resolution as part of democratic electoral processes. The post-meeting report included participants’ points of agreement, including the following observations3: Disputes which do not relate to the infringement of fundamental rights, or which involve non-discriminatory State actions, can be considered informal in nature and do not necessarily require legal The Carter Center, Electoral Dispute Resolution Experts’ Meeting 1 (2009), available at http://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/peace/democracy/des/electoral-dispute-resolution-meeting.pdf. 3 110