Election quality varies enormously around the world.  Given concerns about global democratic backsliding, the issue of how to improve and protect election quality is a pressing policy problem.  Passing reforms to improve the quality of elections, however, has often proved difficult to achieve.  Incumbent governments may be reluctant to reform the rules which brought them to power.  Should they have a majority in the legislature, they may seek to pass reforms which make it easier for them to win in the future, potentially further causing election quality to decline.  Electoral reform may also struggle to appear on the policy agenda ahead of issues such as the economy, law and order or education.  Governments may also be unfairly criticised for ‘rigging’ the electoral process by sceptical publics – when their proposals might be beneficial for electoral integrity.

Academic research has tended to focus on the effects of electoral laws - leading to prescriptions about the reforms which should be made. However, there has been much less attention on the process of making electoral laws. Who should be involved? When should they take place? What practices are there to win trust amongst stakeholders and the public?

This conference is a collaboration between the Electoral Integrity Project and The Westminster Foundation for Democracy.  The workshop will consider following themes and questions:

• What principles should underpin the electoral reform process?
• What are the barriers to ensuring that the electoral reform process is democratic, inclusive, transparent and consensus oriented?
• How can public trust be maintained?
• What interventions can be adopted to help to ensure ‘good’ electoral reform?
• Case studies of electoral reforms where the electoral process was strengthened / undermined.

The workshop is underpinned by the launch of new guidelines on electoral reform from the Global Network for Securing Electoral Integrity at the keynote panel. Papers on day 2 and 3 then provide county case studies to explore the extent to which the principles were followed and why (not).

The workshop aims to come to come conclusions about the barriers and policies which can be enacted to bring about democratic electoral reform which meets the principles.