2. About the Electoral Justice Database Why an Electoral Justice Database? International IDEA’s recent research on electoral justice shows that both newly established electoral legal frameworks across the globe and reformed versions of some existing frameworks pay increased attention to electoral justice. These frameworks focus, for example, on the dispute-resolution procedures applicable to certain stages of the electoral processes including the nomination of candidates, the conduct of campaigns or the certification of results (OrozcoHenríquez et al. 2010). This research also highlights an increasing awareness of the need to establish comprehensive and integrated legal and institutional frameworks to govern elections, and the EDR system is often the key element of the electoral reform agenda. The lack of credibility of some electoral processes has often led voters to question the need to participate in elections, or to reject their results. In view of this, effective and timely electoral justice becomes the key element in addressing threats to the credibility of elections. The importance of access to justice in election-related matters is also well documented in relevant international obligations and standards. A review of approximately 200 public international law documents by the Carter Center (2014) found 21 fundamental rights and obligations that are relevant to electoral processes. These documents pay due attention to electoral justice and recognize its role in providing equal rights to electoral participants and fair resolutions of judicial procedures. International IDEA’s most recent publication on the subject (Tuccinardi et al. 2014) dedicates a special chapter to electoral justice that summarizes the key obligations, treaties and United Nations jurisprudence on this topic. Academic researchers are also paying increased attention to electoral justice in broader analyses of electoral integrity. According to the research conducted by Birch (2011), which covers 161 elections administered in 61 countries between 1995 and 2007, malpractices related to electoral justice are not so widespread. Nonetheless, her findings reveal some concerns related to the adjudication of disputes in 47 per cent of countries. Since any mishandling of electoral disputes has the potential to diminish stakeholders’ trust in electoral justice, this finding is troubling. More recently, a global expert survey on perceptions of electoral integrity (PEI) by Norris et al. (2015) examines some key aspects of electoral justice. The survey results show that democratic or ‘free’ countries generally experience fewer challenges to elections results than ‘partly-free’ and ‘not-free’ countries (see Figure 2.1.). At the same time, however, in democratic countries there are many more cases of electoral disputes resolved using legal channels. This generally shows how well EDR mechanisms work in democratic countries. The case of partlyfree countries, which are also known as hybrid regimes, is particularly interesting. They have many more cases of challenges to election results 10