Carter Center director for democracy and election program David Carroll speaks of Carter’s commitment to democratic ideals
Published 9:54 pm Saturday, January 25, 2025
- David Carroll democracy and elections program director at The Carter Center.
David Carroll is the director of The Carter Center’s democracy and elections program. Carroll has over three decades of experience at The Carter Center, much of it focused on work connected to democracy, elections, and election observation.
Carroll spoke of the importance of elections to President Carter. “It was one of the very first things that he did at the Carter Center, was he worked on elections in Panama, Nicaragua, and Dominican Republic in the late 80s and the early 90s, and I started just after that.”
Carroll traced his own history with The Carter Center. “I started in The Carter Center in 1991 in the Latin American and Korean program, and when a new program that was focused just on democracy and elections was created in 1997, I moved to that and I became the director of that 2003.”
Carroll stated that The Carter Center was positioned to take on a unique role. “They came upon a niche where there was a need for outside groups that could look at an election process, do an in-depth observation and analysis and report as a neutral, trusted outside party that could help bring confidence to elections, especially where it was highly conflictual, [and] there’s lack of trust in election authorities.”
Carroll stated there were some previous examples of election observation, but that The Carter Center was very much a pioneer in elections observation. “In its current form internationally, it really started to take shape around the time The Carter Center was getting engaged in it.”
Carroll spoke of The Carter Center’s current work. “Every year, we’re observing two, three, four, five elections all around the world, and since the 2020 elections in the United States, for the first time in our history, we’ve been getting involved in some elections here in the United States. In Georgia, we’ve observed some election-related processes, like post-election audit.” He stated they also helped state-based local groups to do what they call citizen observation.
He also commented on Carter’s own view of U.S. elections. In Carroll’s opinion; “President Carter, like a lot of folks, was increasingly concerned that people were starting to lose trust in elections, and just sort of the fundamental public participation and confidence in the election processes here.”
Carroll stated their U.S. elections observation has the same goal as their international work. “That’s really what our work internationally has been focused on. So it’s really trying to bring more people to get involved, to report as an outside, non-partisan group to provide another kind of independent lens beyond the two parties and the election authorities.”
Carroll spoke of the unique challenges involved in monitoring elections in the U.S. “It’s challenging mostly because of how complicated our political system is. There’s really no other country that I can think of that is so decentralized for the way elections are organized at the state level.” He stated differences in state laws created differences in each state’s polling process, registration, and access to polling stations.
When asked whether he saw the commitment to democratic principles broadening or shrinking on the global stage, Carroll replied; “I think it’s going through a tough period. You know, there was a long period of growth from the 70s to the early 2000s and more countries becoming democratic. It kind of stabilized and plateaued in the mid 2000s and it’s been kind of slowly going down in the last 10 years or so.”
When asked what he thought the cause was, Carroll cited increasing complexity. “Maybe the end of [the] stable, you know, international bipolar system. Maybe it’s technology.”
Carroll believes that the efforts of organizations like The Carter Center can help. “We know that we’re not a determining factor, but the presence and the work of observers is really intended to kind of help get that curve back going in the right direction.”
When asked what he thought Carter would most want remembered about his legacy as an advocate for democracy, Carroll replied; “I think his first priority has always been about human rights, but human rights and democracy are so closely interlinked that he would see them as vital to support one another.”
He commented on The Carter Center’s future after Carter’s passing. “He always wanted The Center to continue doing its work after him. So it’s just a step that we always knew was coming.”
Carroll stated that he never saw Carter’s dedication to democratic ideals wane. “The consistency of his commitment to these values and these kinds of activities has always been apparent and has never changed throughout my career.”