Monitoring ensures compliance with the legal framework and acts as a deterrent to those thinking about undertaking questionable activities. The public reporting by monitors increases transparency and helps ensure accountability. It can also be done by other groups, such as official observers appointed by an election policy body, which is done in India. 274 Effective monitoring should cover the entire electoral process and not be limited to voter registration or polling. Whether partisan or neutral, both types of monitoring play very important integrity roles.
Partisan monitoring focuses on the protection of a favoured candidate or party's interests.
Ensuring monitors from different political parties are able to follow the process, ensures that any incident that is detrimental to a candidate or party will be reported. Nonpartisan observers are expected to be impartial, and to provide objective reporting. As reporting on elections usually involves rendering a judgement on the process, the integrity of the monitoring effort is important. Integrity issues involved with monitoring are discussed in Integrity Issues in Oversight , Integrity in Domestic Observation and Integrity in International Observation .