After more than twenty years of election observation in Europe and more than ten years of legal assistance to the Council of Europe member states, many improvements were observed regarding electoral legislation and practice. These improvements were materialised thanks to political will and to a rather successful implementation of international recommendations in the electoral legal framework. Nevertheless, the practical implementation of electoral laws and laws related to political parties (including financing of political parties and electoral processes) remains problematic to several extents. The conduct of elections according to the rule of law involves the setting of a mechanism that would ensure the respect of democratic principles, the guarantee of equal treatment in the exercise of the right to vote and to be elected, the development of a political culture, as well as transparency in the exercise of rights and duties by the electoral actors, preventing therefore any kind of abuse. One of the most crucial, structural and recurrent challenges, raised on a regular basis in election observation missions’ reports in most of the countries observed, is the misuse of administrative resources, also called public resources, during electoral processes. This practice is an established and widespread phenomenon in many European countries, including countries with a long-standing tradition of democratic elections. Several generations of both incumbents and civil servants consider this practice as normal and part of an electoral process. They seem even not to consider such practice as illegitimate action vis-à-vis challengers in elections. It may be consequently harder for these challengers to take advantage of administrative resources. This phenomenon seems part of an established political culture and keeps a relation not only with practices potentially regarded as illegal but also with the ones caused by the lack of ethical standards related to the electoral processes of the public authorities in office.