It can be more challenging to establish objectively the impact on the election result of other types of irregularities, typically related to the registration and campaign parts of the electoral cycle.56 Yet violations of such rules too can substantially affect the election result. Denying candidates57 and/or large groups of voters the right to participate in the election interferes with the principle of universal suffrage and can obviously have a direct impact on the outcome of the election. Election campaign rules pertaining to conduct, transparency and finance, as well as access to media, are aimed at ensuring equality of opportunity and the freedom of voters to form an opinion. Gross violations of these rules can tilt the playing field in favour of specific candidates and/or have a profound impact on the opinion of voters. If the judge considering election matters is left without the power to provide an effective remedy to the violation of such rules, which in extreme cases may require the election to be annulled, the rules would lose their effectiveness. The Venice Commission emphasises the particular importance of a transparent methodology and reasoning by the judge in relation to evidence of such irregularities and their impact on the results, since their consequences on the number of votes cannot easily be quantified.