A PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO INCREASING WOMEN’S ACCESS TO ELECTORAL JUSTICE during the candidate nomination process and struggle to find redress within intraparty processes, either because they don’t exist or because they are so opaque as to be effectively inaccessible. Those challenges continue when women have complaints against their party leadership or claims of sexual harassment, electoral violence (on- or offline), or campaign finance or other violations against other candidates within the party. In Kenya, the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (PPDT), a judicial body established under the Political Parties Act, is one promising model to provide for independent resolution of intraparty disputes. The tribunal has the mandate to hear, among other complaints, disputes between members of the same political party, disputes between a party member and party leadership, or disputes among parties. ADR mechanisms like the PPDT may be a way for women candidates (or prospective candidates) to feel they have access to an independent arbiter for some of the most common types of disputes without having the stress and expense of a full trial. What can electoral management bodies and EDR bodies do to promote women’s access to electoral justice and the effective adjudication of women’s disputes? EMBs play crucial roles in enforcing electoral stakeholders’ compliance with quotas and other temporary special measures, codes of conduct, and campaign finance regulations. Therefore, in many systems they are the first destination to ensure electoral justice is administered at the point of violation rather than requiring a claim to be brought. For example, EMBs often oversee campaign finance regulations, which in some countries are designed to increase the financial support available to women candidates, by monitoring parties’ and candidates’ “Given the major challenges that women face, the EMB has compliance with the regulations and administering a particular responsibility to do whatever it can within its sanctions when they find violations, EMBs can mandate to foster an electoral environment where women promote women’s equal access as political can contest on an equal footing with their male counterparts.” - candidates through the enforcement of gender- IFES’ Gender Equality & Election Management Bodies: A Best Practices Guide sensitive campaign finance regulations. In addition, EMBs are often responsible for certifying that candidate lists comply with gender quota requirements. In Nepal, for example, the Political Party Act requires that one-third of all members of committees, at all levels of the party, are women. If parties do not observe the quota, the ECN has the power to refuse to register a new party or to decline to allow an existing party to participate in elections. However, stakeholders report that major parties have failed to adhere to the 33 percent threshold but are still able to participate in elections. Because of the ECN’s failure to enforce the law, some people do not file complaints because they may not believe their issues will be resolved. When EMBs regularly and equitably enforce the law and administer electoral justice, people feel more confident in the fairness of the system; the opposite is true when the law is rarely or inconsistently applied or when penalties are not levied for violations. The decentralized nature of many EMBs – with electoral staff interacting with voters and candidates all the way down to the polling station level – provides significant opportunities for well-trained EMB staff to increase women’s efficient access to electoral justice. In Nepal, citizens can file complaints at any level of the electoral body, including with poll workers, returning officers, provincial and district officers, and other ECN staff; all are empowered to resolve electoral complaints at the local level. There is no fee for filing disputes with the ECN, and citizens do not need legal 20