Secretariat for Political Affairs (SPA)
Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation (DECO)

poster
The Inter-American Electoral Management Meetings seek to promote an effective exchange of knowledge, experiences and best practices of electoral administration in the region. These meetings promote horizontal cooperation, permanently strengthen institutional capacities of these organs and further improve the way they promote elections in the Americas.

There have been nine Inter-American Meetings of Electoral Authorities. The first one was held in March 2003 in Panama City, Panama, where participants discussed the importance of consensus among political actors to implement technological changes and promote necessary legal reforms on this matter.

In subsequent meetings, participants discussed the effective use of new technologies at different stages of the electoral process, sharing best practices to ensure accurate and efficient transmission of results, among other topics. In November 2015, in Lima, Peru, representatives of electoral bodies in the region discussed how to generate public confidence in electoral processes, highlighting three important issues: strategies to confront criticisms of electoral authorities, governmental intervention in elections, and quality management systems of electoral processes (ISO electoral).