His experience as chief electoral officer in one of the world's best-known trouble spots has taken Pat Bradley around the globe in the past two decades. But having supervised transitional elections from Malawi to Hong Kong and beyond, he will play a pivotal role over the next two or three days in what may be the most important election of his life.
The history-making will not be without headaches. No sooner had his declaration of last month's referendum result resounded around the world than Pat Bradley and his staff had to start preparing for another major poll. And the world's interest has not diminished much in the meantime - a query from the Qatar embassy was one of many phone calls to interrupt our interview.
So, asked about issues such as whether Northern Ireland's sensibilities will countenance this weekend's election counts continuing into the Sabbath, the chief electoral officer grows notably reticent. "I'd like to think it will all be over on Friday night. But if you had recounts, for instance, and staff were counting for two long days Friday and Saturday, you might want to give them a break anyway. To be honest, it's a black scenario. I don't even want to think about it at the moment."
Born in the Bogside in Derry, Mr Bradley worked in local enterprise development before he won a position as deputy electoral officer in his home city in 1973. It was a turbulent time in Northern Ireland. "They were rough elections in 1974. The Provos took a dim view of the electoral process, so staff were attacked and polling stations were attacked. It was a particularly tough time, but we survived." Having had a baptism of fire, he was appointed chief electoral officer in 1980, just in time to oversee the hunger-strike elections of 1981. "That was another difficult period. And then, of course, came the era of Danny Morrison and the Armalite and the ballot box and all that, a period when our society was very much at odds with itself."
The chief electoral officer is understandably reluctant to accept that Northern Ireland has a particular talent for electoral fraud, even though the "vote early, vote often" tag dies hard. In defence of his homeland, he says: "I have yet to see a country without original sin, where there isn't electoral abuse, or bribery and corruption for that matter."
But the Derry man can't help recalling an example from the city of his youth: the "changing rooms" near the polling station, where people would be given a change of clothes and go back in to vote again.
He admits that West Belfast has had a particularly vigorous tradition, up to very recent times: "The SDLP have complained frequently, claiming thousands of personations by Sinn Fein, but the sad fact is they haven't produced proof of it to date."
Although he plays down his advisory role behind the scenes of Northern Ireland's peace process, he points to the 1996 Forum poll as an example of an electoral format tailored to meet the needs of a political situation: the main point of the guaranteed representation for the top 10 parties being to ensure the "validation" of all the main spokesmen for the paramilitaries.
His experience abroad in countries in transition has convinced him that "there is a right time for elections". It follows that there is a wrong time, too. But he is too diplomatic to say that the organisation of elections in Bosnia in autumn 1996 was one of those, even if you sense this from the way he talks about his experiences there.
President Clinton, himself seeking re-election, was keen on a Bosnian poll and Pat Bradley was head of the mission to prepare it. But when the US elections were over and the pressure had eased, the plans were quietly shelved until a better time.
"I always tell people elections are not an end in themselves. They're a way forward," he says.
Last month's referendum was a classic example of this dictum. On the occasion of the count, Mr Bradley, who says he is unpopular with the local parties because he is not amenable to their machinations, was in the firing line again as the Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said the No campaigners would be putting their own seals on the polling boxes to ensure against any tampering by their opponents.
There have been no such noises this time. Mr Bradley is reluctant to discuss the security of the polling boxes, although he says candidates have a right to satisfy themselves on the security of the process. However, he adds, with evident pride: "That whole issue of the referendum ballots died a death, because I stayed with the boxes all night myself."