After promoting the quick count, building a volunteer network, training observers and setting up a data collection system, election day arrives. At headquarters, phones begin to ring, volunteers key in data, and analysts compile reports. At this point, organizers celebrate the technical success of the quick count. What is often underestimated, however, is the difficulty of the work that immediately follows—managing and releasing quick count results.

The random sample is drawn, observer forms are developed and distributed and observers are recruited and trained. On election day, observers take up positions at assigned polling stations and get ready to collect and report the data. This chapter deals with the next steps. The chapter begins with a discussion of data reporting protocols. It explains how and when observers report data on the quality of the process and the vote count results. Some of the problems associated with information flows on election day, and practical solutions to those problems, are discussed.

In many election observations the final vote count attracts the most attention. This is entirely understandable. The vote count determines election day winners and losers, and the integrity of that count is a longstanding concern in many countries. The final count, however, is just one aspect of an election. No one doubts that an accurate, honest vote count is a necessary condition for a democratic election, but it is not a sufficient condition. Electoral outcomes too often have been rigged in ways that have little or nothing to do with the counting and tabulation of results.