USAID Supports Kosovo Election “Firsts”
Kosovo’s historic November 2007 elections marked the first time that Kosovars elected their parliamentary representatives through open list voting and the first time that mayoral, municipal, and parliamentary elections took place on the same day. Municipal elections were conducted through open lists—which hadn’t occurred since 2000.
USAID contributed to a smooth election process by assisting the Central Election Commission with conducting a major voters' education campaign in Kosovo and to the diaspora, as Kosovars living abroad were eligible to vote. USAID also provided support to Democracy in Action, a coalition of 11 non-governmental organizations, which monitored all three elections.
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| Training of NGO activists who volunteered to monitor November 2007 elections |
Democracy in Action mobilized 2,400 activists to monitor election campaigns, the election process, and media coverage of campaigns. Most notably, the coalition conducted a parallel vote tabulation (PVT) through which volunteers text-messaged vote counts from over 23,00 polling stations across Kosovo to a televised Media Center. In the hours following the elections, Kosovars could watch constant TV coverage of party scores for Parliamentary, Municipal Assembly, and Mayoral races across Kosovo, as the political parties—either at the Media Center or glued to the www.democracy2007.net website—watched as mounting tallies confirmed results.
This was also the first election in which results were transmitted live to a Kosovo-wide audience. USAID support for election administration, public awareness, and get-out-the-vote efforts was implemented in cooperation with IFES, NFDI and the IREX Civil Society Project. The efforts of Democracy in Action were supported by IFES and KIPRED, a local think tank.
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