Managing Election- Relation Violence for Democratic Stability in Ghana Election Observation: A Panoramic Survey Before discussing what election observation is all about, it is necessary to distinguish it from two other forms of election engagements that have often been confused and used interchangeably without any explicit distinction. These are the concept of election monitoring and supervision or auditing. While election observers only gather information about the electoral process and make informed judgments without interfering in the electoral process, election monitors, besides observing the electoral process, can intervene when laws are being violated(International IDEA, 1997; African Union, 2002; Electoral Commission of Ghana, 2007). The Electoral Commission(EC) framework for domestic election observation in Ghana concurs with this definition and points to this distinction by stating that while election observers have no role in the actual administration of an election, an election monitor has(EC, 2007: 9). The mandate of election supervisors, on the other hand, is to certify the validity of the electoral process. In a nutshell, observation is a passive activity and entails no interference while monitoring is an interventionist and preventive activity where monitors can give binding instructions(Kuhne and Hett, 2004). Usually organized outside the realms of the state, but with its consent, election observation has become a critical feature of the democratization process worldwide. It has been universally accepted as a mechanism for ensuring the integrity of elections in countries undergoing democratic transitions and in post-conflict societies. It may vary in terms of modalities but not so much in terms of objectives. In emerging democracies for instance, observing elections has become a confidence-building measure, 243