A/HRC/24/36 ensure equitable access to State media by all political parties and the impartiality of the police and army personnel and civil servants during the elections. The NEC provided a detailed response to the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on electoral reform contained in his report and on the current concerns of civil society and opposition political parties in this regard. While the Special Rapporteur was satisfied by some of the responses and assurances provided, the response to many of the recommendations was unsatisfactory as explained below. 38. In particular, the Special Rapporteur regrets that the principal law governing elections in Cambodia, the Law on Election of Members of the National Assembly (LEMNA) has not been amended since the publication of his report on elections in July 2012, despite his recommendations to that effect. The Special Rapporteur is, however, aware that the NEC made efforts to strengthen its independence by appointing two senior retired judges to its membership. It has also accepted some suggestions of civil society organizations such as the prohibition of the use of State resources such as cars, buildings and the services of civil servants in partisan election campaigns; the granting of permission to use public places such as the market for political campaigning by all parties; the prohibition of the placement of signboards and campaign materials supporting specific political parties in or on State buildings. Unfortunately, these welcome efforts are offset by a number of instances of political interference by civil servants that are still being reported. Despite the assurances expressed by the NEC that public servants are not permitted as officials to engage in active campaigning for a political party during their working hours, public servants from the lowest to the highest levels of Government have not strictly abided by this rule. This is even more pronounced in the rural areas. The Special Rapporteur is therefore obliged to recall that all civil servants, police and military, are not permitted to carry out activities that favour one political party. The Special Rapporteur is also concerned about several issues brought to his attention by a number of independent election monitoring and human rights organizations. 39. A key concern is the integrity of the voter registration process and subsequent voter lists. Two audits of the voter lists undertaken in early 2013, one by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the election monitoring group, the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), the other by the election monitoring group, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL) have revealed flaws that would directly impact the vote. While the Special Rapporteur is not in a position to verify the accuracy of these findings, he is of the view that such concerns must be noted and if appropriate, duly addressed, particularly given that they originate from more than one source. The NDI/NICFEC Voter Registry Audit (VRA) reported “an overall decline in the quality of the voters list since 2008 with regard to comprehensiveness, accuracy and currency”. It suggests that the voter registration rate has decreased from 87.9 per cent eligible voters in 2008 to 82.9 per cent in 2013 and that “10.8% of eligible citizens who believe they are registered cannot be found on the list and will not be able to vote on the election day”. The audit also revealed that “only 63.6% of the names on the voters list can be verified in person to currently live where they are registered, while another 17.9% of respondents exist but live most of the time in another location and a further 10.4% do not exist in person”. Another survey conducted by COMFREL, using a different methodology, arrived at similar conclusions. The NEC declared the audits unreliable for methodological reasons. The Special Rapporteur has been informed that the NEC hired an independent firm to conduct another audit of the voter list. It found that 9.7 per cent of the voter names were missing, which is close to the results of the NDI/NICFEC and COMFREL audits. However, by cross-checking the results with their private database, the NEC finally reported that only 3 per cent of eligible voters who claimed to have registered were unaccounted for in the registry. The Special Rapporteur regrets that, based on the results of the first audits, the correction of the list could not have been made earlier, permitting a larger number of people 12