In recent decades there has been an explosion of democracy throughout the world: Latin America in the 1980s; the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the spread of democracy throughout Central and Eastern Europe; the dismantling of the Soviet Union and other openings in Africa (Namibia and South Africa) and Asia (Cambodia and East Timor). According to the United Nations Development Program Human Development Report 2002 fifty seven percent of us live under democratic governments. It seems that a day does not go by without elections being mentioned in the electronic or print media. 2. I have had the privilege of observing elections in over 30 countries, some of them immediately following conflict or after regime change. In preparing this paper I looked back on some of the early elections I witnessed: Namibia; Bulgaria; Romania; Estonia; El Salvador; Guatemala, Sierra Leone. These were exciting times.3. In some "first time" elections the administration of the election day activities was administered by the international community thus ensuring the impartiality of the election process. While this is useful and necessary, it should not in my view be a regular feature of a democracies election management process. 4. As we all know there is no single political system or electoral method suited to all nations. We should not seek to question a State's sovereign right to choose its own political, social, economic and cultural systems. When it comes to the political system, the chosen system must give the people the opportunity to express their will through periodic elections conducted on the basis of equal suffrage and secret ballot. The ballot must be cast in secret and it must remain secret. No individual's ballot should carry more weight than the next person's vote. 5. International and domestic observers should look carefully at the run-up to the election, access to the nomination process, access to the media, bias towards the incumbent and other areas sometimes described as the level playing field. Then of course there is the day of the election and the counting of the votes on or immediately following that day. In my opinion there is an over-emphasis on the polling and count activities. Observers, particularly international observers, tend to arrive just a few days before the election, deploy to their designated area and make their assessment based on polling and count activities. There is sometimes a race to get the first statement to the media on whether the election should have the "free and fair" endorsement. 6. I am not underestimating the value of election day and count observation. There needs to be given a greater value to pre-election issues and the immediate aftermath of the election, particularly in relation to the acceptance of the result. 7. How then do you ensure the transparency and impartiality of the electoral administration on election day? I would argue that there are a number of forces that come into play here that can take us to the position where we can ensure such transparency and impartiality. It involves the constitution and the electoral law; the appointment of the electoral management body; the functioning of that body in an independent way; the training of the EMB and the appointment of staff used to conduct the election. In short, the management of the elections the important role played by the electoral administrator.