ELECTION WATCHDOGS 5/30/17 11:29 AM of an additional complaint, prompting the CEC to organize another repeat election for a sixth municipality on January 23 (European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations 2011). It is important to highlight here that although the ECAP ordered these repeat elections for irregularities during the December elections, it only ordered recounts for similar complaints lodged following the partial repeat election. As the EU noted, “While this is likely to have happened because the Panel was reluctant to order repeats of repeat elections, it only indicates that addressing irregularities by partial repeat elections does not provide a sustainable remedy.” (European Union Election Expert Mission 2011). The next step of the investigatory process – missing in Afghanistan and Haiti, where the audit processes effectively ended with a political agreement – was the criminal investigation of individuals alleged to have contributed to the irregularities found during the CEC and ECAP reviews. In prior elections in Kosovo, observers had noted serious concerns about “the failure of prosecution authorities to promptly and vigorously investigate and prosecute fraudulent activities” (Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe 2012). Accordingly, “in an attempt to curtail the culture of impunity, the President of the Supreme Court and the State Prosecutor committed to fast-track criminal cases” emerging from the 2010 election (European Union Election Expert Mission 2011). As per the criminal procedure law, municipal prosecutors were tasked with investigating and prosecuting election offenses. A comprehensive analysis conducted by the OSCE of a sampling of these cases revealed troubling lapses in the handling of these investigations according to international standards, with some notable exceptions. A full analysis of these shortcomings is outside the scope of this chapter, but many of the cases reviewed suffered from insufficient evidence and poor legal reasoning for indictments and the failure of the judiciary to “thoroughly and fairly examine these cases during the main trial in compliance with applicable law and defendants’ fair-trial rights” (Organization for Security and CoOperation in Europe 2012). Determining how far the 2010 post-election “audit” in Kosovo met the six principles outlined in this chapter is somewhat more complex than in either Afghanistan or Haiti, where the investigations and evidence sources were more limited. As noted above, ownership of the Kosovo audit process remained with the election management body and complaints panel (and the relevant prosecutorial authorities for criminal investigation) as per the law (although as some observers have noted, the law may give excessive authority to the CEC to order re-votes without a judicial decision) (European Union Election Expert Mission 2011). Clearly articulated procedures were in place to determine the type of irregularities that would trigger an audit by the CEC, and for the investigation of complaints by the ECAP. In the former case, however, the scale of the review and the limited timeframe put a huge burden on audit staff who lacked comprehensive training. The EU Mission final report notes tellingly 19