An issue to be taken into particular account in the field of electoral assistance especially for cost effectiveness and sustainability is the introduction of technological innovations in the administration of the elections. The current effort of the EC, UNDP and International IDEA to make electoral assistance more effective cannot avoid tackling today the issue of the crescent of Technology applications available for electoral administration purposes and the appeal that such applications exert for various reasons on the beneficiary countries’ Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs).

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have rapidly and dramatically changed the way elections are conducted in many developed countries, and it would be unrealistic not to consider that this process will develop further and have a deeper impact not only on emerging democracies, but also on post-conflict countries, regardless of their level of preparedness to introduce such applications. These are factors to be reckoned with by all development partners, practitioners and electoral assistance providers. In particular, voter registration processes, as the most contentious, costly and logistically complicated aspect of every electoral cycle, represent the specific domain where technology applications are most likely to achieve a long-term impact in the sustainable democratic development of several EC-UNDP partner countries.

When it comes to electoral processes, there is obviously no single solution that can be universally easily and effectively applied everywhere; different situations require different solutions. As a general rule, the level of technological upgrades suitable for a given recipient country should always be directly related not only to their capacity, but also to the prevailing levels of trust and independence enjoyed by its EMB, ultimately, these are crucial elements that in the end will determine their acceptance by the public opinion and, as a consequence, increase the trust placed in the electoral process.

The EC and UNDP in collaboration with International IDEA are in the process of gathering and share a summary of important lessons that have been learned in the last four years of implementation of EC-UNDP electoral assistance projects in support of partner countries and their electoral management bodies (EMBs) in introducing technological innovations in their electoral processes.