The European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE) has launched a new paper looking at political bias in election observation. EPDE is a joint grouping aimed at strengthening the quality of election observation in Eastern Europe, Russian Federation and European Union.

The paper suggests that a number of elections have seen independent and biased observers recruited in order to dampen the impact of larger or more legitimate missions either for domestic or international consumption.

The paper suggests that politically biased observers do not adhere to international codes of conduct or observation methodologies and/or are made up of people with predisposed views in favour of the incumbent regime.

You can read the paper here.