An Integrated Approach to Elections and Conflict with EMB capacity building in political finance and other strategic areas, and support to local organizations in electoral conflict monitoring, early warning and peacebuilding efforts. Unfortunately, there are many examples of long-term grievances that drive electoral conflicts. Electoral assistance may have fewer tools to address these issues, but can support partners in a variety of efforts. Media training, community dialogues, public awareness campaigns, political consensus building and other programs to build common ground and increase discussion of problems and solutions can be part of a comprehensive electoral cycle assistance program. In Bangladesh, at the national level, the political will to reduce conflict, denounce violence or address old grievances is low. Recurrent electoral violence in Jamaican garrisons is deeply rooted in the corrupt relationship between money, patronage and politics that exists outside of the electoral process. An election-focused intervention, even if inclusive, community-led and effective, cannot resolve any of these long-term problems alone. Long-term solutions require cooperative and innovative tactics. Monitors in the EVER program in Bangladesh in 2006 and 2007 reported that as monitoring went on, monitors learned that local political leaders in some constituencies did not want to be “caught” using violence and encouraged their supporters to avoid using violence. It is possible that ongoing intervention at the community level could capitalize on the gains noted by the EVER team. In other cases, local organizations that are active during elections can engage with the same stakeholders and push for resolution of long-term issues between elections. Seeking longer-term projects that emphasize dialogue, education, training and electoral reform could go a long way toward conflict resolution. In general, tips for better conflict resolution across the stages of the electoral cycle include:  In the pre-election period, promotion of legitimate means to resolve disputes can facilitate conflict resolution before issues become grievances.  Throughout the pre-election period, but particularly in the post-election period, a credible and effective election complaints adjudication system can encourage parties to use this mechanism for addressing disputes rather than violence, and can lead to the resolution of conflicts rather than uncertainty and ongoing tension (which can fuel violence) over alleged irregularities.  The development community should recognize that between-elections work on corruption, representational inequities, exclusion of certain groups or geographical areas can benefit from certain aspects of sustained electoral assistance, such as civic education, political participation, gender participation, or other educational, consensus-building and rights-based work. Conclusion Elections themselves will not resolve conflicts, but conflict-sensitive election assistance can contribute to effectively addressing these conflicts to foster a more peaceful election process. The backbone of a good, conflict sensitive approach is explicitly linking the conflict-response cycle and the election cycle. Merging conflict program approaches with the electoral cycle allows a better understanding of the inter-dependent roles that key stakeholders play in reducing violent conflict around an election. Bringing the two cycles together can help international and domestic electoral assistance practitioners not only better appreciate the range of activities which they already do that can be better focused on conflict-related goals, but also encourage innovation to fill gaps. 16