The international election monitoring regime has become considerably more complex in the twenty-first century. Although the number of organizations engaged in high-quality election monitoring has plateaued, the number of low-quality monitors—commonly known as zombie monitors—has continued to grow. Low-quality election monitors threaten democracy because they validate flawed elections and undermine the legitimacy of the international election monitoring regime. This article argues that international politics have played a crucial role in the diffusion of low-quality election monitors. It hypothesizes that ties with autocratic powers that promote low-quality observers and membership in authoritarian regional organizations significantly increase the likelihood that a country will host low-quality monitors at its elections. To test the hypotheses, the article draws on original data on international election observation between 2000 and 2020 that identifies the most comprehensive set of groups of election monitors to-date. A statistical analysis of the dataset supports the argument.

二十一世纪，国际选举监督制度变得更加复杂。尽管从事高质量选举监控的组织数量已趋于稳定，但低质量监控器（俗称“僵尸监控器”）的数量仍在持续增长。低质量的选举监督员威胁民主，因为他们验证有缺陷的选举并破坏国际选举监督制度的合法性。本文认为，国际政治在低质量选举监督员的扩散中发挥了至关重要的作用。它假设，与独裁权力的联系会促进低质量观察员和独裁区域组织的成员资格，从而大大增加一个国家在选举中接待低质量监督员的可能性。为了检验这些假设，本文利用了 2000 年至 2020 年国际选举观察的原始数据，确定了迄今为止最全面的一组选举监督员。数据集的统计分析支持了这一论点。