Johann Kriegler was chairman of South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in 1994. Before he was appointed to the IEC, Kriegler was an Appeals Court judge. After 1994, he worked as an adviser in various sensitive electoral processes around the world. He chaired the commission investigating the violence that erupted following the Kenyan elections of 2007, and he served on Afghanistan’s U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission in 2010. 

Rupert Roopnaraine was a co-leader of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, a group he joined in 1979. He served as a member of Parliament from 1995 to 2000 and on the Constitutional Reform Commission in 1998.  He also was a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, special select committees on the Integrity Bill and on the Trade Union Bill, and the Public Accounts Committee. He also was a member of the Commonwealth Observer Missions for elections in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zanzibar. At the time of this interview, he was program director of the Guyana Citizens’ Initiative.  He received his doctorate in comparative literature from Cornell University, and he taught at the University of Guyana, Cornell, and Columbia University in various capacities.

South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission initially hired Howard Sackstein in February 1994 to investigate breaches of the electoral code of conduct in Mpumalanga.  Within a few weeks of joining the organization, he was promoted to coordinate the Gauteng office of the commission’s Investigations Unit, where he oversaw 36 lawyers.  After the 1994 elections, Sackstein was one of two people retained to shut down the operations of the temporary Independent Electoral Commission, before the creation of the permanent Independent Electoral Commission.  He played a key role in the 1999 elections.  In early 2010 he was running his own technology firm, Saicom Voice Services.

Limakatso Mokhothu was nominated by one of Lesotho’s main political parties to serve as an electoral commissioner in 2003.  She was one of three commissioners who oversaw Lesotho’s controversial 2007 election.  The following year she was appointed chairwoman of the commission.  Before joining the Independent Electoral Commission, Mokhothu worked on governance issues at the Irish consulate in Lesotho.

At the time of this interview Shukri Ismail was the founder and director of Candle Light, a health, education, and environment non-profit based in Somaliland. She was the only female national election commissioner with Somaliland’s first National Election Commission.

At the time of this interview, Johnson Asiedu Nketia was general secretary of the National Democratic Congress in Ghana.  Prior to becoming head of the party, he was a member of Parliament for the NDC for 12 years.  He also served as deputy minister of food and agriculture.  Before entering politics, he worked as a bank manager.

At the time of this interview, Peter Eicher was an independent consultant on elections, human rights and democracy. He worked for the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, heading elections missions, providing election advice and preparing handbooks and reports on elections in various countries.  He started his career as a foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department.  After retiring from the department, he took up the deputy director position at the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.  In 2005 he began working with the U.N.’s Electoral Assistance Division, working first on the 2005 Iraqi elections and later on the 2008 Bangladeshi election.