EDR systems. For example, although the EMB reviews candidates who are registered or nominated to verify that they meet the qualifying requirements to become a legislator during the stage of preparation of the election, some systems allow or even require this to be reviewed again at the post-election stage before the proclamation of the winner, and both decisions could be challenged before an EDRB. 218. ‘Guarantees’ are any legal means or instruments by which values, rights or institutions that are protected or established by the legal order on behalf of the voter are assured, protected, supported, defended or safeguarded. The guarantees, both structural and procedural, of the EDR system seek to ensure that elections are held in line with the law and are free, fair and genuine, and also to protect or restore the enjoyment of electoral rights. In this sense, the EDR system constitutes the overarching guarantee of the observance of democracy and the rule of law. 219. The main guarantee of an effective EDR system is the availability of a remedy that can correct an irregularity by annulling, revoking, modifying or even just acknowledging it. Other mechanisms can either deter or punish a transgressor through a regime of criminal or administrative liability (see figure 2.1). Proper institutional design can safeguard or foster certain values; for example, it is more likely that impartiality will be observed if the EDRB has more than one member. 220. It is common for the body of first instance for the hearing of an electoral complaint to be an organ of the EMB, the action of which – for example, a refusal to register a candidate – is challenged by that candidate or by a political party. Several EDR systems provide for the possibility of an administrative challenge before a higher-level official or a complaints organ of the EMB. Once that higher-level person or organ issues its decision, the possibility of a challenge is often provided for – if the refusal is confirmed, by the political party or candidate that brought the original challenge; if it is overturned, by some other political party or candidate. This challenge is heard by a judicial body – a regular court of the judicial branch, a constitutional court, an administrative court or an electoral court – which generally issues the final judgement. In some cases, however, two successive judicial challenges are provided for – for example first before a regular court and then before a constitutional court. It is most common, however, for the challenge mechanism to include first a hearing before the highest decision-making level of the EMB and then a hearing before a judicial body. 221. Similarly, in the case of election results, it is common in various EDR systems that, faced with an irregularity at a polling station on election day, the political parties or candidates affected may question or challenge the result set out in the official vote count from that polling station before an organ 84