Elections OSCE/Mats Lindberg Ballot boxes at a polling station in Rome, for elections to the lower chamber of parliament, senate, provincial government, mayor and municipal council, 13 April 2008. timely mechanisms for the protection of electoral rights at all stages in the election process, including: the registration of voters, political parties and candidates; the election campaign; the vote itself; and the counting of ballots and declaration of results. In particular, this often involved the absence of the opportunity to file complaints over a lack of equitable access to the media or the allocation of state resources. Support to OSCE field operations during elections and referenda In 2008, ODIHR deployed two Election Support Teams, comprising several experts each, to enhance the capacity of OSCE field presences to follow electoral events in cases where an ODIHR election observation or assessment mission was not deployed. Election Support Teams provide expert advice on electoral developments to OSCE field missions, which, in turn, report on the electoral event through their standard OSCE reporting channels. Expert teams of this type were deployed for local elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (5 October) and parliamentary elections in Turkmenistan (14 December). II. Follow-up to observation missions ODIHR is always ready to follow up on its election observation reports by providing assistance to participating States. In 2008, ODIHR continued to conduct follow-up work on its observation activities and recommendations, and to lend assistance to states in implementing their commitment to follow up promptly ODIHR’s election assessment and recommendations. Where sufficient political will to improve the election process is present, the post-election period provides an opportunity for participating States to benefit from ODIHR election observation recommendations through an active follow-up process. These recommendations can assist participating States in meeting their commitments to conduct democratic elections. ODIHR’s follow-up work took a number of forms in 2008. In addition to publishing legal reviews, ODIHR representatives took part in a broad range of meetings, roundtables and seminars organized in a number of participating States. This included follow-up activities in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Ukraine. Some of these activities were initiated as part of visits by the ODIHR Director shortly after the publication of election observation mission reports. In July 2008, follow-up issues were also discussed during an election seminar organized by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office in Vienna. Good practices and lessons learned were shared through the examination of concrete examples Annual Report 2008 15