ELECTION WATCHDOGS 5/30/17 11:29 AM insisted that it was “extremely important that [the election] take place" to hasten Haiti’s recovery and show to the world that it still had a “civic pulse” (Padgett and Desvarieux 2010). A controversial first round of presidential elections excluded dozens of parties from eligibility and left 2,217 tally sheets (representing around 23% of votes) either uncounted or with irregular vote totals (Johnston and Weisbrot 2011). The primary observation report from the election, issued by the OAS Joint Electoral Observation Mission, noted that Haiti’s laws did not clearly articulate the roles and responsibilities of the Departmental Electoral Bureaus (BED) and the Communal Electoral Bureaus (BEC). The Mission also said responsibilities of the dispute resolution bureaus, both of which fall under the structure of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and are tasked with addressing electoral disputes at both the departmental (BCED) and national (BCEN) levels, were not clearly defined (Organization of American States 2011). Preliminary election results from the CEP indicating that a popular anti-establishment candidate, Michel Martelly, would not be part of the run-off were greeted with three days of violent protests. Shortly after this announcement, the United States Embassy in Port-Au-Prince raised concerns about irregularities in the election process and the differences between the CEP results announcement and the findings of the National Observation Council (CNO), a domestic observer group that had monitored the process across the country (Sontag 2010). Rapid negotiations between the OAS and Haitian government resulted in an OAS team of experts being sent to Haiti to verify the results (Taft-Morales 2011). This Expert Verification Mission faced a difficult task, lacking a prior legal mandate and predetermined audit processes and procedures. The Mission did not issue a code of conduct, and while it created standards for the inclusion or exclusion of tally sheets from the final count that were based on the electoral law of Haiti (specifically Articles 171, 161.1, and 173.2) and relevant international standards, they were not specifically provided for in preexisting election law (Organization of American States 2011). Ultimately, the mission investigated only a subset of the polling stations based on a statistical model and focused on elements of fraud only, as opposed to both fraud and malpractice. The major triggers for an audit of a polling station were also adjusted during the audit, causing further challenges with respect to uniformity (the trigger for closer scrutiny of a polling station results form was initially 225 ballots cast in favor of one candidate, but this trigger was subsequently changed to 150 ballots) (Organization of American States 2011). Tally sheets selected for review were analyzed on the basis of several criteria: 1) whether the tally sheet had the required signatures of polling officials, 2) whether a list of registered voters was included, and 3) whether voter national identity numbers of those who voted at a particular voting station were present and accurate. To these, the Mission also added an additional criterion to assess 15