Election Audits: International Principles that Protect Election Integrity  Integrity management. Election management bodies should prioritize integrity-related risks, particularly in nascent democracies, and should develop an electoral integrity management plan based on rigorous integrity assessments and scenario mapping before each electoral cycle.  Established legal framework. The legal basis for any audit must be defined as part of the legal framework under which the election was conducted.  Established procedural framework. The procedures under which the audit is conducted must be developed and shared with all stakeholders in advance of the audit.  Effective training and adherence to a code of conduct. An audit must not begin until codes of conduct are in place and until training of audit personnel and public education have been conducted.  Clear jurisdiction. Jurisdiction over the audit process should be clear and vested with a national institution, preferably the electoral management body.  Predetermined and uniformly applied rules. The scope and scale of the audit must be clearly defined before the audit begins. Rules should not change after the audit has begun, and audit rules – including the standard of evidence – and regulations must be uniformly applied across all cases throughout the audit process.  Appropriate evidentiary standards. Proper chain of custody of evidence should be maintained by following clearly defined standard operating procedures, continuity of possession, security, and inspection.  Right to an appeal. The electoral process must maintain a right to appeal decisions of an audit, but candidates should not be able to use the audit process as a means of delaying acceptance of an electoral result. There are best practices and lessons learned for election audits in post-conflict, transitioning environments. Ideally, audits would be unnecessary, as rules and regulations and procedures for counting and reviewing ballots should be sufficiently robust to eliminate the need for invasive auditing processes. For democracy to succeed in fragile and transitioning environments, electoral legal frameworks must be respected; electoral management bodies must be strong, independent, and impartial; and political parties and candidates must support the outcome of the election process. Challenging circumstances can test the foundations on which nascent democracies rest. Stakeholders must unite in support of the frameworks that have been adopted and the fledgling institutions that are responsible for safeguarding the democratic foundations and legal framework in which the election takes place. When audits are determined necessary, they must be based on a predictable set of procedures and guided by best practices. This paper has attempted to provide this guidance in the hope that when such audit processes are required, there are resources available to audit managers, so that any post-election audit conducted may be less contentious, more predictable, and ultimately protect the integrity of an election and its outcome. 18