Over the past two years of Democracy Volunteers we have rightly focused on our deployments and observations, and then reporting on them.

However, we are also aware that election observation has many other stories and participants than ourselves and many opportunities and places to observe than we ourselves can organise.

So this is our new blog! It will be less formal than our main site democracyvolunteers.org and will tell our readers about the things that go on behind the scenes from the perspectives of our observers and others: from Heads of Mission reporting from the field to the experience of new Short Term Observers.

Look out for more stories over the next few months as we tell you more about the world of election observation.

John Ault is Director of Democracy Volunteers