10  : :  ELECTIONS Ulaanbaatar, 17 January 2018. Election experts ODIHR discuss recommendations of the ODIHR final report on the 2017 presidential election in Mongolia with representatives of the country’s parliament and the General Election Commission during a visit to Ulaanbaatar. (State Great Hural of Mongolia) recommendations, providing in-country technical expertise or legal opinions in 19 countries. This included targeted activities on election administration, voter lists and media in the Western Balkans as part of an ongoing dedicated project. ODIHR also launched paragraph25.odihr.pl, a centralized and searchable database of electoral recommendations to support institutions and civil society across the Western Balkans in their follow-up efforts. ODIHR further supported participating States by training election observers, convening the first-ever meeting of national focal points to discuss good practices related to the secondment and deployment of election observers, and hosting the annual Election Seminar, with a focus on election campaigning. In 2018, ODIHR’s election-related work focused on observing elections, supporting follow-up of electoral recommendations, strengthening the Office’s election observation methodology and supporting participating States in training and deploying observers. ELECTION OBSERVATION In 2018, ODIHR deployed missions to a wide range of countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Hungary, the Russian Federation and the United States. ODIHR also continued to respond to a growing number of early or unanticipated elections and referendums, including in Armenia, Azerbaijan, North Macedonia, Slovenia and Turkey. ODIHR carries out election observation in OSCE participating States to assess the extent to which elections respect fundamental freedoms and are characterized by equality, universality, political pluralism, confidence, transparency and accountability. A long-term, comprehensive, consistent and systematic election observation methodology has become the bedrock of ODIHR’s credibility in this field.  In line with the rolling calendar of elections maintained by ODIHR and the Office’s well-established methodology, election observation processes begin with the deployment of a needs assessment mission (NAM) several months before each election to assess the environment and preparations for the elections. Based on this assessment, the NAM recommends whether to carry out an observation activity and, if so, what