Elections on Trial: The Effective Management of Election Disputes and Violations precision and clarity” to verify the serious nature of the plaintiff’s allegations.82 In contrast, Mexico has clear and specific guidelines for what constitutes evidence and the acceptable manner of providing evidence.83 Access, notice and evidence are foundational concepts in the practice of fair administration of justice, and these components are all in operation in a fair and impartial hearing. Hearings that adhere to the fair administration of justice also require an unbiased arrangement of logistics related to the case. In Kenya, to facilitate a fair hearing, the PPDT and courts can hold scheduling conferences (an element of case management), which are intended to assess the possibility of alternative dispute resolution, documents that the Tribunal may order to be produced, compliance with regulations and consolidation of complaints or appeals and a settlement, as well as identify contested and uncontested issues and create a timetable for the proceedings.84 Introducing mechanisms to ensure the impartial assignment of cases also serves the goal of fair hearings. In the Philippines, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has a unique ‘raffle’ system whereby a filed case is assigned randomly and impartially through an automated system that ensures both divisions have a similar caseload. A second raffle occurs to determine which commissioner will be charged with drafting the decision. These measures are designed to support the efficient and impartial consideration of cases and drafting of decisions. Similarly, the Mexican case management software includes features that manage the blind assignment of cases to individual magistrates. This is done according to rules that ensure caseloads are balanced and that interested parties cannot influence the assignment of cases. Fairness necessitates not only that EDR laws and practices are consistently applied across time, but also that they are consistently applied across different jurisdictions and levels of appeal. Though examples from our case studies suggest that courts of first instance are more likely to apply uneven standards of law, this harm can be mitigated by a clear appeals process that brings disputed cases before bodies with more specialized EDR knowledge. For cases that come before the trial courts in the Philippines, for example, elections expertise and training varies among members of the judiciary, leading at times to uneven and inconsistent jurisprudence. In the course of appellate review of trial court decisions, one COMELEC commissioner noted instances of misapplication of the rules, particularly in cases involving new voting technology. However, a strong appeals process enables COMELEC to have oversight over lower court rulings and remedy misapplications of the law. In Kenya, a handbook on election disputes published by the Law Society of Kenya stressed the inconsistency of some decisions in the courts, and the Law Society urged the Court of Appeals to harmonize this contradictory jurisprudence “to ensure 82 The Administrative Tribunal, Electoral Dispute, the First Appellate Chamber, No. 201420039 dated Nov. 8, 2014. Electoral Recourses Law, 1996, Article 9. Evidence should be presented at the same time as the lawsuit, or within four days of filing the suit, with certain exceptions being granted for evidence that was unknown at the time or presenting the case. Expert reports are only permitted when the expert is not related to the electoral process and the time available for the case allows the report to be executed. A justice can ask for expert reports or judicial inspections when time allows and it is deemed necessary to the resolution of the case, though this is rare. 84 Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (Procedure) Regulations, No. 26 (2017) Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 60 (2017) § 15, http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/LegalNoticeNo.67PoliticalPartiesTribunal.pdf. 83 27