It is of paramount importance that the vote count is conducted correctly. The correctness of the count depends on clear procedures, adequate staff training and their commitment to the process. Though the overall process of vote counting is reasonably organised in most CoE member states, there are sometimes still technical and political problems. Even in some recent elections, mandatory procedures for counting have been disregarded or not strictly followed, and procedural shortcomings were noted in the counting and tabulation (e.g. Albania, Russian Federation, and Ukraine). In some cases, the deficiencies appeared to result from poor administration rather than attempts at manipulation. In other cases, however, there were also clear attempts at fraud, including ballot box stuffing and the falsification of results and protocols. As for the 2020 early parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, the PACE electoral observation mission concluded that “despite some appearance of progress in the preparation for the elections, the widespread violations of counting procedures raised serious concerns about the results of the voting in general” (Doc 15090, para 7).