When Are Elections Good Enough? Validating or Annulling Election Results may deal with them in different ways, which may result in inconsistent or even contradictory treatment of voters. The 2014 nationwide audit of votes in Afghanistan resulted in the amendment of the results in more than half of all polling stations.46 Some of the irregularities exposed during the audit included incorrectly completed or manipulated results forms, incorrectly counted ballot papers, missing voters’ lists, missing or broken security seals, and under-utilization of tamper-evident bags.47 This evidence of uneven practices was further compounded by uneven decisions and practices within the audit itself, and ultimately the effort was abandoned. In the 2000 presidential race in the U.S., the infamous “butterfly ballot” episode in Palm Beach County, Florida was part of the election challenge that eventually made its way to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.48 The punch-card ballot layout was confusing, which led some voters to mistakenly punch the wrong hole and thereby vote for another candidate. As Professor Steve Bickerstaff has noted, “[m]any tried to correct their mistake, but ended up with a ballot that contained more than one vote for president,” and these votes were ultimately disallowed.49 Problems with the Transmission, Tabulation, and Certification of Results The transmission, tabulation and certification of results are frequent sources of election disputes. It may be challenging to ensure that these processes are transparent and verifiable, which can lead to doubts that data was transmitted or that the results of calculations are accurate. Electronic results transmission systems may be subject to hacking or cyberattacks, which can call the reliability of results into question. While many systems use paper results forms to verify electronically transmitted results, discrepancies between the two can raise questions about the results transmission system as a whole, particularly if the paper-based verification process takes time. In annulling Kenya’s 2017 presidential election, the Supreme Court recognized that no evidence had been put before the court to show that voter registration, voting or counting were not conducted in accordance with the law. However, the court found that “illegalities and irregularities” existed in the results transmission process that rendered the result of the election “opaque and unverifiable, and therefore indeterminate.” The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) faced challenges in producing the actual results forms on which the electronic results were based within the legally specified 48 hours from the date of service.50 Collecting those forms would have involved collecting materials from 40,883 polling stations across 292 constituencies51 or providing direct access to sensitive servers containing electronic results forms. In its judgment, the court stated that IEBC’s 46 According to the European Union (EU) Election Assessment (EAT) Final Report, the IEC fully invalidated 1,039 polling station results (4.6 percent) and partially invalidated the results in 10,546 (46.2 percent) polling stations during the national audit. EU EAT, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: Final Report Presidential Election, 42 (2014), http://www.eueom.eu/files/dmfile/FINAL-REPORT-EUEAT-AFGHANISTAN-2014-c_en.pdf. 47 IFES, Electoral Integrity Assessment, Afghanistan 2015, 4. 48 Bush v. Gore 531 U.S.98, 105-06 (2000). 49 American Bar Association Standing Committee on Election Law, International Election Remedies, 2016, 189-190. 50 Section 11(1) of the Kenya Supreme Court (Presidential Election Petition) Rules 2017. 51 “Statistics of Voters,” Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, https://www.iebc.or.ke/registration/?stats. 13