During the 1990s, electoral management bodies (EMBs) were introduced in Latin America with the objective of strengthening democracy and generating confidence in elections. These organisms were constitutionally inserted as the fourth branch of power and possess the combined capacity of participation in both horizontal and vertical accountability, capacity labeled by us as the third dimension of accountability. This article aims to analyze the role played by the EMBs in democratic dissatisfaction in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The four cases are analyzed over time, following a comparative longitudinal framework methodology that covers the last 40 years, though paying particular attention to the last two decades. Alongside critical reading of academic work, information is gathered from Latinobarómetro and official data from the EMBs in each country. Our four cases reveal that these bodies have fallen prey in an asymmetrical struggle permeated by corrupt political behavior and the hierarchization between the branches, deficiencies that have ultimately caused citizens’ indifference towards democracy. Our findings suggest a diffuse dissatisfaction towards democracy in general and also a specific dissatisfaction towards EMBs. The latter affects vertical accountability more directly.