ARTICLE - U.S. GOVERNMENT - ELECTIONS

FAST FACT ON U.S. GOVERNMENT'S WORK IN HAITI: ELECTIONS
(U.S. Department of State) - Office of the Haiti Special Coordinator

Fact Sheet
January 8, 2011

The 2010-11 presidential and parliamentary elections present an opportunity for Haitian citizens to make choices about who will govern their country during its reconstruction phase.

The U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, contributed $14.5 million in election support to the electoral process.

This assistance includes the following elements:

The procurement of elections material, including ballots and ballot boxes through a $5 million contribution to the UNDP-managed elections trust fund.

Support to a national network of nonpartisan community action groups that organized election-related civic education and voter mobilization efforts including community-based, civic-education forums and get-out-the-vote campaigns at the departmental, communal and communal-section levels.

Technical assistance to political parties participating in the 2010-11 elections in the areas of poll watching, candidate debates, and election dispute resolution. These activities were designed to help political parties to compete more effectively in the elections.

Support to both domestic and international electoral observation. Financial and technical support was given to a network of Haitian civic organizations to monitor the pre-election period; and recruit, train and deploy non-partisan observers on election day to report on the voting and counting processes. To compliment these efforts, $1.5 million was provided to support the deployment of an Organization of the American States (OAS) and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) long-term electoral observation mission to observe pre-electoral, election day and post-electoral developments in all of Haiti’s departments, and to support the recent OAS-led verification mission charged with reviewing the preliminary results of the first round.

Support to the organization and administration of the elections, by:

Training for polling center and polling station staff;

Technical assistance with planning, preparing and implementing the nationwide civic and voter education campaign; and

Technical assistance to the observer accreditation unit for the timely issuance of accreditation cards to international and national observers as well as political party representatives.

These activities encourage regular, two-way communication between the Government of Haiti and the electorate, political parties and civil society to improve the transparency of the process and address the concerns of elections stakeholders as they arise.