22 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT INTERNATIONAL ELECTION OBSERVATION COVER STORY Doug Wake retired from the Senior Foreign Service in 2009 after a 28-year career focused largely on Europe and Eurasia, multilateral organizations, and human rights and democracy. He was first deputy director of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) from 2009 to 2013 and has since led multiple ODIHR election observation missions. He and his wife, Connie Phlipot, also a retired Senior FSO, live in Vienna, Austria. A seasoned observer explains how this practical tool fosters transparency and promotes democratic development, and why it’s important. BY DOUG WAKE When I was a Foreign Service officer heading to Leningrad in 1988, consulting experts on America’s key rival, no one mentioned elections. None were scheduled in the USSR, and none had been relevant there since 1917. Then, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev announced competitive elections to a new Soviet “Congress of People’s Deputies” in 1989 and to regional parliaments in 1990. We began to hear that activists would campaign to express long-repressed aspirations. In Leningrad, an informal coalition would field candidates supporting reforms. In Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, popular movements would use Soviet elections to send delegates to Moscow in 1989 and restore independence in 1990. We followed the campaigns closely, without knowing whether votes would be counted fairly or real results announced. By all appearances, in Leningrad and the Baltics, that was largely the case. Still, these were not fully democratic elections. There was only one legal party. Independent candidates faced obstacles. The most powerful Leningrad communist official, for instance, used his vast power to ensure he would be the sole candidate in one working-class district. But on a Saturday outing shortly before the election, I came across a banner and grassroots campaign advising voters that Soviet legislation allowed them to cross out his name on the ballot. Amazingly, more than half the voters did just that, humiliating the party boss and prompting his early retirement. During those last Soviet years, I occasionally asked officials for permission to enter polling stations. I had no accreditation to do so but was never turned down. Little did I ponder at the time that all these activities—talking to political organizers, watching campaigns on the street, visiting polling stations—were a form of “election observation.”
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