Violations of electoral integrity occur throughout the electoral cycle. This article focuses on violations that take place in the legal framework for elections and examines what happens when election laws fail to meet international/universal standards of electoral integrity. Using case studies of local government elections in Pakistan, this article shows how violations of electoral integrity within the legal framework impacted the conduct of elections, rendering local elections controversial. This article argues that violations of electoral integrity standards within election law also affect electoral administration and management. It shows how violations of electoral integrity standards within the legal framework broke down the electoral processes for local government elections. Local elections are a huge exercise in Pakistan: the last cycle involved elections to about 80,000 seats in four provinces, and around 87 million voters were called to choose representatives for these seats. Electoral exercises of such magnitude are linked with the overall political stability of the country, hence local elections deserve attention from both practitioners and scholars.
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