Partisanship, Threats, and Violence: Unraveling the Complex Dynamics in American Democracy

By LAUREL HARBRIDGE-YONG (Professor, Northwestern University) and ALEXANDRA FILINDRA (Associate Professor, University of Illinois Chicago)

In 2020, Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan announced that she would not be seeking re-election. A central reason was threats of violence against her and her family. Ms. Durkan is not alone. In recent years, threats and violence have targeted public health officials, school board members, Congress members and staff, state legislators, mayors, and local election officials, among others. Several organizations such as the U.S. Capitol Police, the National League of Cities, the Bridging Divides Initiative, and the Brennan Center have produced reports raising concerns about this accelerating phenomenon and its potentially harmful effects on victims – officeholders and staff – and American democratic institutions. In 2022-2023, we conducted 110 in-depth interviews with subnational elected officials and staff. Everyone reported experiences with incivility, most respondents recounted threats of violence, and a small minority were exposed to actual violence. Clearly, America faces a problem of deteriorating democratic norms and an uptick in political violence.

In the face of this political landscape, we sought to understand how the partisan public responds to such events. When it comes to evaluating threats and violence against elected officials, does the public apply a consistent standard, informed by democratic norms, or does partisanship shape their evaluations? And if partisanship shapes their evaluations, do we face a vicious cycle where learning about political violence targeting your own party leads people to justify further political violence? Our initial research suggests that while partisanship shapes some aspects of public evaluations, people evaluate threats and violence similarly, regardless of the party targeted, and do not rationalize violence or become radicalized themselves; all hopeful signs for our democratic institutions.

Despite criticism of incivility and aggression from both sides of the political aisle, evaluations of civil, uncivil, and aggressive or violent behavior may not be politically neutral. This is because partisanship is a core part of people’s identity and shapes how they interpret events and information. Partisan identities create strong in-groups (copartisans) and out-groups (opposing partisans). Political scientists have shown that in-group favoritism is associated with different yardsticks for evaluating in-group and out-group legislators. Partisanship also plays a role in how people understand misbehavior. Partisans are more willing to rationalize and excuse in-group leaders’ misbehavior. They also  evaluate norms breaking by the in-group less severely than similar behavior by the out-group, and rationalize undemocratic behaviors if they promote desired policies. This suggests that incivility, threats, and even violence perpetrated by co-partisans toward an opposing party legislator may not be viewed as seriously or be seen as concerning as the same behaviors by opposing partisans toward a co-partisan legislator.

Another concern about the public response to threats and violence against elected officials is that learning about threats or violence, particularly if they are perpetrated by members of the opposing party and target an elected official from one’s in-group, might increase people’s willingness to rationalize violence or engage in violence themselves. We know that the public’s response to political violence is shaped by social identities.  When group identities are under threat, partisans can be induced to become radicalized and endorse violence towards members of the other side. Even though few endorse actual violence (e.g., physically harming people), support for the principle of political violence can nevertheless be harmful as it weakens democratic norms. 

We assessed public evaluations of threats and violence in two ways. First, we assessed whether the public differentiates between civil, uncivil, threatening, and violent interactions between constituents and elected officials when partisanship is not mentioned. We asked survey respondents to evaluate 40 short descriptions of interactions between constituents and an elected official. After reading each description, respondents selected which words best describe the behavior: civil, appropriate, uncivil, inappropriate, violent, and criminal. Second, we used a survey experiment to examine whether the partisanship of the elected official and constituents shaped the public’s response. Survey respondents read a mock news story that described an incident between a Senator and a large group of his constituents. This incident was described as a civil townhall meeting, a civil protest, a protest with threats made toward the Senator, or a protest with violence directed toward the Senator. We also randomized the partisanship of the Senator. The constituents were always described as being in the opposing party than the Senator.

The results of the first study suggest that people do recognize differences in civility/appropriateness within democratic politics as well as the severity of incidents; incivility is distinct from threats and violence. First, even when constituents are critical of the politician, people distinguish between responses that are civil from those that are uncivil or slurs. Second, people view uncivil interactions and slurs similarly. Third, people view threats and violence as distinct from merely uncivil interactions. Finally, although there are some similarities in how people view threats and violence in democratic politics, violence tends to be evaluated more harshly than threats. Importantly, Democrats and Republican evaluate these incidents similarly. Without the presence of partisan cues, the public recognizes what behaviors are inconsistent with democratic norms and which are not.

When people evaluate incidents where they know the partisanship of the elected official and the constituents, partisanship plays a more limited role than some scholarly literature might suggest. Regardless of whether the targeted Senator is from the in-group or the out-group, partisans in the public recognize threatening and violent protests as less appropriate and less civil than a civil townhall or civil protest and identify them as more criminal and violent. The partisanship of the target has no bearing on these evaluations. While in-group attachments do shape evaluations of the out-group when constituents from the opposing party target a Senator from your own party with threats or violence – i.e., feelings toward the opposing party and evaluations of the traits of party identifiers reflect greater animosity in the threats and violence conditions – there is little evidence that an attack against an in-group legislator leads people to rationalize violence or become radicalized toward violence. In today’s era of heightened partisan animosity, these are encouraging signs for our democratic politics. However, they leave open a question of whether responses to threats or violence from political elites – elected officials, major figureheads in the party, or partisan media organizations – might inflame partisanship and lead people to rationalize violence. This is the subject of our ongoing work. We are also probing the strength of the null findings in our experiment by exploring whether attacks on the partisan in-group increase animosity and support for violence if we raise the stakes of the vignette experiment – focusing on an issue the respondent views as moral in nature and where electoral competition between the parties is salient.

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Laurel Harbridge-Yong is a Professor of Political Science and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She received her PhD in 2009 from Stanford University. Her research and teaching explores questions surrounding partisan conflict and the difficulty of reaching bipartisan agreements and legislative compromises in American politics. Her work spans projects on the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, and the mass public. She is the author of two books – Is Bipartisanship Dead? Policy Agreement and Agenda-Setting in the House of Representatives (2015) and Rejecting Compromise: Legislators’ Fear of Primary Voters (with Sarah Anderson and Daniel Butler, 2020) – and numerous journal articles.  

Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Unite America, the National Science Foundation Time Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS), the Social Science Research Council, and the Dirksen Congressional Center, among others. Her current research projects examine how primary elections shape representation, and how threats and violence against elected officials shape legislative behavior and whether the public rationalizes the use of political violence. 

Laurel is the EIP’s 2023 IFES Mannatt Fellow.

The EIP ECPR Workshop in Prague in Review

The Electoral Integrity Project hosted an workshop on ‘New Developments in Electoral Integrity Research’ at the ECPR General Conference in Prague, September 2023.

The workshop was co-convened by Leontine Loeber, Holly Ann Garnett and Toby James.

Holly Ann Garnett and Toby James introduced a proposed new framework for evaluating electoral integrity and reconfiguration of the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index.

There were five panels overall:

• Concepts of Electoral Integrity

• Campaigns and Election Finance

• Manipulation of Elections

• New Developments and Electoral Integrity

• Public Perceptions of Elections

For more information, please see the conference page.

The iEIP 2023 Conference in Review

The Electoral Integrity Project held it’s third international online conference in July 2023.

Around 500 participants joining from over 60 countries this year. There was an action packed agenda of 14 panels across the week. The workshop brought the EIP into it’s 12th year of conferneces.

The workshop comes at an important moment in time. There have been widespread concerns about democratic backsliding and a more uncertain international environment. In this age it is more important than ever, that academics, civil society groups, practitioners and the international community come together to monitor the quality of elections and identify solutions for improving elections.

The workshop began with an update about the latest trajectory in election quality around the world by drawing from the latest Global Electoral Integrity Report and dataset.

The opening panel (below) then focused how practitioners and academics can work together in a panel convened by ACE and chaired by IFES’s Cassandra Emmons.

The conference also featured panels on commitments for the Summit for Democracy and the use of technology in elections.

All of the recordings from the week’s workshops are now available on the conference webpage for review and re-watching.

The EIP 2023 Global Electoral Integrity Project report is launched

The new report from the Electoral Integrity Project has reported that election quality has held steady around the world – and increased in many countries. 

There have been widespread concerns about democratic backsliding around the world with the US launching a Summit for Democracy, asking countries to make commitments to support democratic reform. 

The Electoral Integrity Global Report notes that there is no evidence of an overall decline in the quality of elections worldwide since 2012.

There was an increase in election quality in many countries that received widespread international coverage.  Despite the president-hopeful Raila Odinga’s contestation of the election results, this election continued the upward trend in electoral integrity Kenya has seen since 2013.

Despite the protests from Bolsonaro supports, the 2022 presidential election in Brazil saw general stability in terms of electoral integrity across the board.

The 2022 midterm elections in the United States showed an improvement from the 2020 presidential election.

Denmark Leads

The Electoral Integrity Global Report publishes data on the quality of elections worldwide each year, based on expert perceptions. Denmark was reported as to having the highest quality elections internationally.

On a 100-point scale, elections with the highest levels of electoral integrity are once again in Western Europe, with Nordic countries Denmark (87) and Sweden (81) having some of the top-rated elections of 2022, alongside Austria (83) and Slovenia (80).

Elections with the lowest levels of electoral integrity included contests in countries from Sub-Saharan Africa (with the Republic of Congo (27), Angola (31) and Equatorial Guinea (16) having some of the lowest rated elections). These countries particularly struggled with electoral laws, the voting process, and/or the performance of electoral authorities. Outside of Africa, contests in Serbia (38) and Turkmenistan (23) were also included in the bottom five elections of 2022.

Regional variation continues, with the Nordic countries and Western Europe demonstrating consistently in high electoral integrity, while regions like Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa showcase a range of challenges and opportunities for improvement of electoral processes.  

Electoral campaigns the biggest weakness

The Index indicators of the integrity of campaign environment were the lowest scoring stages of the electoral cycle, with campaign finance and campaign media again at the bottom. Conversely, the election procedures, vote count and results were found to be the highest quality.  

Academics and practitioners to discuss electoral integrity

The Electoral integrity Project will be holding an international conference during the week of the 5th July which will bring together policy makers, academics and practitioners researching elections from over 50 countries are expected to attend quality.

 Dr Holly Ann Garnett said: “Some of the key challenges for electoral integrity remain those related to the campaign environment, with campaign finance and media among the lowest overall. Further work is needed to level the playing field and address concerns about the quality of information voters receive to make their deliberations.” 

Professor Toby S. James said:  ‘We certainly should not be complacent about the quality of elections.  The Global Electoral Integrity Report certainly shows, however, a story democratic resilience as much as backsliding.  The efforts of electoral officials, legislators and the international community to protect election quality in many countries should be noted and applauded.’

Election observers are important for democracy – but few voters know what they do

Authors: Thomas Molony (Senior Lecturer in African Studies, The University of Edinburgh); Robert Macdonald (Research Fellow in African Studies, The University of Edinburgh)

Originally Published in the Conversation February 23, 2023 2.11am EST

Members of a European Union election observation team speak to voters in Zimbabwe. Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images

Election observers keep watch over polls throughout the world. Their job is to support efforts to improve electoral quality and to provide transparency. In African countries, both local citizen and international observers have been deployed regularly since the 1990s.

During several recent elections across the continent, however, questions have arisen about the competence and impartiality of observation missions. This has led to concerns about the future of observation, both in Africa and elsewhere.

In 2023, more than 20 African countries are scheduled to go to the polls. It will be a busy year for observers who’ll be present at the majority of these elections.

When done well, election observation detects ballot-box stuffing, voter suppression and political violence. Observers’ presence at polling stations deters election-day fraud.

Observers also provide public statements about election quality and offer recommendations on how electoral processes could be improved.

Yet some observers have been criticised for a reluctance to point out flawed processes, for holding biases and for weaknesses in their methodologies.

The perception that observation missions’ verdicts were “proved wrong” by court judgements in Kenya (2017) and Malawi (2019) has been particularly damaging. In both cases, many commentators (mis)interpreted international observers’ statements as endorsements of electoral processes that the courts later annulled.

It’s not clear how widely held these critical views are. The perspectives of the broader public in countries holding elections are often missing from discussions on observation. So we set out to get a sense of what voters in three African countries thought.

We found that people wanted to know more about election observers, but couldn’t easily get the information. Both the media and observers need to do more to provide it. Knowledge of observers’ goals and statements is essential if they are to play the role of public arbiters of election quality.

What Citizens think

Our research into citizen perceptions and media representations of election observation took place in Zambia, The Gambia and Kenya. These three countries have had varying experiences of election observation.

We interviewed 520 citizens about topics relating to their perceptions of election observation. In each country, we conducted in-depth interviews in both urban and rural areas, and in constituencies that supported the opposition and the incumbent.

Ordinary citizens in our case study countries rarely offered criticisms of election observation.

For example, we asked 120 Kenyans to evaluate the past performance of election observers during the run-up to the country’s 2022 election. Only one person referred to the controversy surrounding observation in 2017 and the supreme court’s annulment of the presidential election.

Instead, we found strong support for election observation among citizens. This was the case in all three of our case study countries, which cover east, southern and west Africa.

Our respondents tended to have concerns about the electoral process in their own country. They spoke favourably about the potential of observation to improve overall electoral quality and transparency. They also felt that observers contributed to reducing the potentially destabilising effects of elections, such as violence.

In both Zambia and Kenya, support for the presence of international observers was higher than support for citizen observers. Respondents in The Gambia, however, tended to prefer citizen observers.

The explanations from those who chose international observers highlighted a perception that they were more impartial than citizen observers, who were often viewed as being biased or corruptible.

Perceptions in Zambia and Kenya may be influenced by:

• political polarisation

• a perception that political corruption is high

• the prominence of ethnicity in politics.

These factors appear to reduce confidence in citizen observers.

Despite the popularity of election observers in our case study countries, we found that citizens knew little about their roles. Few could name any specific observation missions. Citizens often confused observers with other electoral actors like polling station staff, the electoral management body and party agents.

It’s common for citizens to believe observers can and should intervene in the electoral process. Yet, non-interference should be a key principle for both citizen and international election observers.

The information gap

Our interviews made it clear that citizens – especially those in rural areas – found it difficult to get information about the activities and statements of election observers. Few of the respondents heard this information when missions issued their preliminary statements.

The media can bridge this information gap by providing more coverage of election observation.

The quality of this coverage could also be improved, as observers’ preliminary statements are often mischaracterised.

Observers’ statements tend to be complex and nuanced because they are commenting on numerous aspects of an ongoing process. In media coverage, these statements are often reduced to simple either/or judgements (such as “free and fair”).

Way forward

Our project has drawn upon interviews with African journalists and editors to create a short list of tips on covering election observation. These are designed to improve the circulation of accurate information. The tips include getting a range of perspectives from observer missions and reaching out to them early.

Observer missions could also be more active in raising the profile of their work. We created a list of suggestions from the media in our three case study countries to help them do this. One of the tips is to interact with the media in local languages.

Citizens are more likely to criticise observers for the poor flow of information than for anything else. This doesn’t invalidate other criticisms of observers. In fact, if citizens begin to get more information, these criticisms may become more common. Our research suggests the media and observers need to provide it anyway.

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Disclosure Statement:

Thomas Molony receives funding from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), for the ‘Local Perceptions and Media Representations of Election Observation in Africa’ research project, under grant reference ES/T015624/1.

Robert Macdonald receives funding from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), for the ‘Local Perceptions and Media Representations of Election Observation in Africa’ research project, under grant reference ES/T015624/1.

Elections in Hungary: 'Free and fair' is much more than election day

A free and fair election requires a context where – among other things – political parties and candidates can register and campaign freely, information is available for public deliberation, and votes are fairly translated into seats. These factors enable citizens to choose (and change) their government freely. However, these principles are under threat in many countries by populist authoritarian regimes that gain and maintain control through the manipulation of the media and autocratic legalism. The latter phenomenon is exemplified by the democratic façade created by leaders such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary, in an attempt to legitimize their regime. These leaders undermine democracy legally, make changes underneath the surface, and remove or control key democratic institutions and procedures. This undermines citizens' ability to make informed choices, rendering the election process a mere façade for the biases and manipulations behind the scenes. While election day itself might be mostly free of irregularities, especially since 2012, it is in the pre-voting phase where biases and manipulation are rooted.

The façade of the electoral system: gaining legitimacy with biased rules

Using elections to gain legitimacy is an old tactic: autocratic leaders from the Soviet Union to Cuba have used elections to create a democratic façade. In 2010, for the first time since the democratization of Hungary, power was concentrated in the hands of a single political power. Following the parliamentary elections in 2010, with a supermajority, the Fidesz-KDNP Party Alliance introduced a new electoral law written behind closed doors and without plural political debate. Without any transparency, the government created a new map of constituencies with districts that varied drastically in size and heavily benefitted Orbán’s party coalition Fidesz-KDNP. In addition, the law replaced two-round elections in single-member constituencies with a majority support with a Winner-Take-All system; legalized “voter-tourism”; “winner compensation”; and strategically granted citizenship and voting rights to 450,000 near-abroad citizens who were known to support Fidesz. These innovations helped him secure a two-thirds majority in both 2014 and 2018. Viktor Orbán and his party alliance are also constantly changing the law to make it more difficult for the opposition to unite and campaign.

This unfair nature of the electoral system contributed to the outstanding success of Fidesz in previous elections, along with the manipulation of media. Orbán transformed the majority of the traditional media outlets into pro-government propaganda, reducing market plurality and political independence of the media.

Assessing the façade

The OSCE’s ODIHR Election Observation Mission concluded that although election day in 2022 only experienced minor irregularities, the election, in general, was “marred by the absence of a level playing field”. This is supported by the Electoral Integrity Project’s evaluation of the quality of elections in Hungary. As Figure 1 shows, while election day activities (voting process, vote count and vote results) score relatively well, the rest of the components – related to the broader environment in which elections take place – score significantly lower.  Low scores on electoral laws, boundary delimitation, campaign media and campaign finance reveal the true nature of Orbán’s electoral authoritarianism. We see in these data a system which seemingly looks democratic but does not offer real opportunities for competition.

Figure 1. Perceptions of Electoral Integrity, Hungary

Call for a closer look

In 2022, the European Parliament deemed Hungary undemocratic, assigning the label of electoral autocracy to its regime. In response, the country’s Foreign Minister, Péter Szijjártó, used the narrative of the elections to legitimize their regime and criticised the European Parliament due to their lack of respect towards Hungary's electorate. However, while in Hungary there are no military personnel encouraging you to vote, and ballots are not marked beforehand, elections still take place in a

system designed by the ruling party alliance and where the opposition cannot campaign with equal conditions and is denied the same opportunities for winning seats. Just because votes are not stolen systematically on election day does not mean that citizens are not robbed of having real options. As the data shows, the Hungarian electorate is deprived of this right. This raises doubts about the possibility of the democratic removal of Orbán's regime, even if the opposition unites. Thus, a thorough examination is required to understand how to challenge such regimes in the future.

Sandor Adam Gorni is a final year master's student in political science at Uppsala University. His academic interests include democratic backsliding, right-wing populism, political participation, voting behaviour, and post-soviet political culture.

How the Far-Right Won in Italy: A Story of Coalitions and Electoral Law

Italy gained global attention this September when, in their first general election since 2018, they elected Fratelli d'Italia – a far right party considered neo-fascist by some – to a majority of seats in parliament. Many attribute Fratelli d’Italia’s success to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s populist rhetoric and her party’s appealing status as the standout opposition to the now-failed Draghi government. However, an underexplored explanation for the win of Fratelli d’Italia and the broader far-right coalition is Italian electoral law and its impact on coalition building.

Italian parliamentary coalitions have typically been short-lived and made up of volatile party alliances. Italy has had an unprecedented number of electoral reforms––five since World War II, which is significantly more than most other modern democracies. These reforms address nearly ever aspect of Italian elections. 2017 saw the most recent major change in Italian election law. By examining specific aspects and implications of the 2017 Rosatellum legislation (formally Rosatellum bis) and considering expert evaluations of recent Italian elections from the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI) dataset, we can put together the story of 2022’s winning coalition in the context of the new Italian electoral landscape.

Specifically, the 2018 national election saw a complex transformation of seat allocation in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate due to the changes from Rosatellum. Designed to foster political stability and strengthen coalitions, Rosatellum provided the electoral setup for Italy’s most conservative government in decades.

NEW SEAT ALLOCATION AND VOTE THRESHOLDS

In the last 70 years, Italy has alternated between allocating seats by pure proportional representation and by varying mixed electoral systems, but in the period between 2005 and 2017 the Italian parliament was elected through a fully proportional system. Rosatellum introduced a new mixed system in which 36% of seats are won via first-past-the-post elections in single-member districts and the other 64% of seats are allocated proportionally in multi-member districts. In proportionally-allocated districts, coalitions must submit closed candidate lists before the election. Additionally, parliamentarians in the Chamber of Deputies, Italy’s lower house, were previously elected through multiple rounds of elections conducted until one party reached a majority, but Rosatellum sets only one election round where the candidate with the most votes takes the seat.

Rosatellum also established new electoral thresholds to incentivise coalition formation. Before 2017, parties ran independently for proportionally-allocated seats, and coalitions were not allowed on the ballot. To compensate for this, an automatic majority of seats was awarded to any party that won over 40% of the national vote. Rosatellum eliminated this, and now requires parties and coalitions to receive over 50% of the vote. Additionally, parties need to receive at least 3% of the overall vote and coalitions need to receive at least 10% to be in contention for proportionally-allocated seats.

Figure 1: Election fairness indicies measured by PEI data from Italy. Each variable presented has a minimum possible value of 1 and a maximum possible value of 5.

By changing seat allocation procedures and setting these thresholds for parties––and more importantly, for coalitions––small parties that coalesce with more mainstream parties became even more crucial than before. The increased importance of smaller parties is reflected in post-election data from the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index, compiled by the Electoral Integrity Project. PEI data, collected through post-election expert surveys, indicate that in Italy, there was a notable increase in the fairness of electoral laws toward smaller parties between the 2013 national election and the 2018 national election, shown in Figure 1.

In 2013, expert assessment showed smaller parties had more of an electoral disadvantage than under the Rosatellum law. It appears that Rosatellum had a positive impact on coalition building, as measured by the increased access of small parties to government. This was a step toward greater electoral integrity in Italy and one with immediate political impacts.  

The importance of small party support limited the pool of viable coalitions in 2022. Partito Democratico, one of Italy’s most prominent parties, struggled to repair fractured relationships with once-allied parties on the left. This was crucial to their electoral success because of two other aspects of Rosatellum: the requirement of pre-election coalition declarations and the elimination of split-ticket voting.

COALITION DECLARATION AND SPLIT-TICKET VOTING ELIMINATION

Rosatellum established a form of closed list voting in which parties both decide the set lists of candidates and can formally nominate the same candidate as other members of the coalition. Voters then choose to cast their ballots either for a specific candidate (and thus their national vote is cast for the party or coalition that nominated that candidate) or cast their ballots for a party (and thus their district vote is cast for the candidate nominated by the party or broader coalition). However, Rosatellum completely eliminated ticket-splitting, or voting for different parties on the same ballot. Specifically, Italian voters must vote for the same party or coalition for both district seats (where they are voting for a specific candidate) and in the national-level vote on the same ballot. As expected, this trend was evident in PEI data from 2018. When comparing 2013 to 2018, experts agreed with the statement “only top party leaders selected candidates” more strongly under the Rosatellum than prior Italian election law, indicating an decline in electoral integrity[1]. Figure 2 shows just how much lower Italy scores on this question than the rest of the region, especially considering its score on the full PEI index.

Figure 2: Overall electoral integrity index compared to ‘Only top party leaderes selected candidates’ variable from PEI_8.0. Both variables reflect the most recent national election as of April 2022 for the 115 counties assessed by the dataset. The variable measuring leaders’ role in candidate selection has a minimum possible value of 1 and a mximumum possible value of 5, with higher values denoting higher integrity. The PEI index has a minimum possible value of 0 and a maximum possible value of 100.

Figure 2 positions the 115 countries included in the PEI dataset on a scatterplot where each country’s electoral integrity index value (0-100) is displayed on the x-axis and the country’s score on the variable measing party leaders’ level of influence over the selection of candidates (1-5) is displayed on the y-axis. Compared to Italy’s score on the overall index, Italy has a very low score of leaders’ role in candidate selection (and thus lower level of integrity). On this variable, Italy scores similarly to nations with much lower values for overall electoral integrity, such as Banglasesh, Syria, and Venezuela.

These electoral changes have made pre-election coalitions vital to success on election day: if two or more parties can agree to declare a coalition and formally nominate the same candidates, they can capitalize on the new majoritarianism by which a significant number of seats are allocated.

This is exactly what happened in 2022. Partito Democratico failed to form a coalition with Movimento 5 Stelle, Azione, or Italia Viva, despite the fact that, if formally together on the ballot, the center left coalition was projected to capture a similar percentage of the national vote as the right-wing coalition, according to pre-election polls. However, these parties could not agree to run together, and instead, Partito Democratico, Movimento 5 Stelle, and the Azione-Italia Viva coalition each ran their own candidates instead of unifying behind a common candidate in each district.

In contrast, the right-wing alliance of Fratelli d’Italia, Forza Italia, and Lega, which differ very little in party platform, unified behind a single candidate from one of the right-wing parties in every district. That is to say, there was only one conservative option on the ballot in any district, whereas there were many more liberal candidates to choose from, thus diluting votes for the left since the party of the candidate with the most votes wins. With the new majoritarian seat allocation, barring one extremely popular party, the only way to be in contention for government control was through formalized pre-election coalitions. Though Partito Democratico, Movimento 5 Stelle, and the Azione-Italia Viva coalition (the liberal parties) actually received a larger percentage of votes overall in the country, they failed to secure the first-past-the-post seats required to take control of the Italian government. The three right-wing parties were able to coalesce in an alliance that allowed their dominance in majoritarian races.

In 2022, the electoral reforms introduced by Rosatellum gave Italy’s right-wing parties a significant advantage. Ultimately, Fratelli d’Italia and their coalition capitalized on the particulars of recent electoral reform through a combination of strategy and good old-fashioned luck.

Rosatellum’s critics argue that coalition incentives aren’t enough to build political stability in Italy, since parties, as they assert, will continue to form unstable alliances that threaten to implode. Compared to the global average, recent Italian elections have been clean, free, and fair, and there doesn’t appear to be an active threat to Italian democracy in light of current electoral law or the right-wing wave. However, more years of political instability and constant reform might reduce Italian voters’ faith in the quality and representative nature of their own elections.

Only time will tell how long Meloni’s government can stay in power, though her coalition comfortably won in recent regional elections. Whenever the next national election is held, coalitions and the electoral law that governs them will still play a fundamental role in who leads Italy.

[1] Question 5-4b. of PEI 8.0 asks for agreement with the statement “Only top party leaders selected candidates.” This is the reversed coding of the previous question (5-4a.) such that higher values denote higher electoral integrity.

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Ansley Langham is an undergraduate student at Emory University, Atlanta.

Local election offices often are missing on social media – and the information they do post often gets ignored

Originally published August 31, 2022 8.27am EDT on The Conversation.

Authors: Thessalia Merivaki and Mara Suttmann-Lea

Local election officials are trying to share voting information with the public on social media but may be missing some key platforms – and the voters who use them.

In early July 2022, for instance, young voters in Boone County, Missouri, complained that they had missed the registration deadline to vote in the county’s Aug. 2 primary election. They claimed no one “spread the word on social media.” The local election office in that county actually has a social media presence on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. But its accounts don’t have many followers and aren’t as active as, say, celebrity or teenage accounts are. As a result, election officials’ messages may never reach their audience.

The Boone County example raises important questions about how prospective voters can get informed about elections, starting with whether or not local election officials are active on social media and whether they use these platforms effectively to “spread the word.”

In our research as scholars of voter participation and electoral processes, we find that when local election officials not only have social media accounts but use them to distribute information about voting, voters of all ages – but particularly young voters – are more likely to register to vote, to cast ballots and to have their ballots counted.

For example, during the 2020 election, Florida voters who lived in counties where the county supervisor of elections shared information about how to register to vote on Facebook, and included a link to Florida’s online voter registration system, were more likely to complete the voter registration process and use online voter registration.

In North Carolina, we found that voters whose county board of elections used Facebook to share clear information about voting by mail were more likely to have their mailed ballots acceptedthan mail voters whose county boards did not share instructions on social media.

Young people face distinct voting challenges

Voter participation among young voters, those between the ages of 18 and 24, has increased in recent elections, but still lags behind that of older voters. One reason is that younger voters have not yet established a habit of voting.

Even when they do try to vote, young voters face more barriers to participation than more experienced voters. They are more likely than older people to make errors or omissions on their voter registration applications and therefore not be successfully registered.

When they do successfully complete the registration process, they have more trouble casting a vote that will count, especially when it comes to following all the steps required for voting by mail. When they try to vote in person, evidence from recent elections shows high provisional voting rates in college towns, suggesting college students may also experience trouble in casting a regular ballot owing to confusion about finding their polling place, or because they are not registered to vote because their voter registration application was not successfully processed.

Some of these problems exist because voters, especially young ones, don’t know what they need to do to meet the voter eligibility requirements set by state election laws. Those laws often require registering weeks or months in advance of Election Day, or changing their registration information even if they move within a community.

Social media as a tool to ‘spread the word’

Social media can be a way to get this important information out to a wider audience, including to the young voters who are more likely to need it.

Younger people use social media more than older voters, with a strong preference for platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.

News outlets and political campaigns use social media heavily. But our analysis finds that the vast majority of local election officials don’t even have social media accounts beyond Facebook. And, when they do, it is likely that they are not effectively reaching their audience.

Gaps in how local election officials use social media

We have found that during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, 33% of county election offices had Facebook accounts. Facebook is the most commonly used social media platform among Americans of all ages. But two-thirds of county election offices didn’t even have a Facebook account.

Just 9% of county election offices had Twitter accounts, and fewer than 2% had accounts on Instagram or TikTok, which are more popular with young voters than Twitter or Faceboook.

Using social media for voter education

Local election officials are charged with sharing information about the voting process – including the mechanics of registering and voting, as well as official lists of candidates and ballot questions.

Their default method of making this information available is often to share it on their own government websites. But young voters’ regular use of social media presents an opportunity for officials to be more active and engaged on those sites.

While many election officials around the country face budget and staffing pressures, as well as threats to their safety, our research confirms that when officials do get involved on social media, young voters benefit – as does democracy itself.

Thessalia Merivaki is Assistant Professor of American Politics at Mississippi State University.

Mara Suttmann-Lea is Assistant Professor of Government, Connecticut College

Disclosure Statement

Thessalia (Lia) Merivaki is an Assistant Professor of American Politics at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University and a member of the Carter Center's U.S. Elections Expert Study Team. She has received funding from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL) and the Scholars Strategy Network (SSN). She is also affiliated with the Election Community Network (ECN).

Mara Suttmann-Lea is an Assistant Professor of American Politics in the Department of Government and International Relations at Connecticut College. They have received funding from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab and the Social Science Research Council.

How does Australia’s voting system work?

Originally published May 17, 2022 3.06am EDT on The Conversation.

Author: Malcolm Mackerras

As you head to your local polling place this Saturday, or cast your ballot in an early vote, it’s worth pondering: how does Australia’s voting system really work, anyway?

The fundamentals of our electoral system have been shaped by democratic values enshrined in Australia’s Constitution and pragmatic decisions made by federal politicians since 1901.

I’ve been studying elections and electoral systems for some 65 years.

Here’s what you need to know to understand how the vote you cast this election fits into the bigger picture.

How long are politicians’ terms?

For members of the House of Representatives – three years.

Section 28 of the Constitution says:

Every House of Representatives shall continue for three years from the first meeting of the House, and no longer, but may be sooner dissolved by the Governor-General.

Since the prime minister advises the governor general, it means he or she makes the exact choice of date. Many people object to that, but I don’t. That power hasn’t been abused.

The now dissolved term (the 46th Parliament) was elected in May 2019, so it has run a full term.

Why do we have more seats in the House than the Senate?

The Constitution says there must be approximately double the number of seats in the House compared to the Senate.

Section 24 says:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth, and the number of such members shall be, as nearly as practicable, twice the number of the senators.

The September 1946 election saw 74 members of the House of Representatives elected to the 18th Parliament (1946-49). There were 36 senators then, six from each of the six states.

Since 1984 there have been 76 senators, 12 from each state and two from each territory.

There are currently 151 seats in the House, which therefore meets the requirement “as nearly as practicable twice the number” of senators.

How are electoral boundaries drawn?

Electoral boundaries are drawn so there are similar numbers of voters in each seat.

Section 24 of the Constitution reads:

The number of members chosen in the several States shall be in proportion to the respective numbers of their people…

The number of 151 electorates was determined mid-way during the 45th Parliament (2016-19). In August 2017 the electoral commissioner, Tom Rogers, issued the latest population statistics and determined there should be 47 members from New South Wales, 38 Victoria, 30 Queensland, 16 Western Australia, 10 South Australia, five Tasmania, three ACT and two for the Northern Territory.

Where necessary, electoral boundaries are re-drawn according to the principle of “one vote, one value” or, as I prefer to say, equal representation for equal numbers of people.

In July 2020, Rogers acknowledged population growth was above average in Victoria and below average in Western Australia.

That is why the forthcoming election will see 39 members elected in Victoria (up one) and 15 in WA (down one). New boundaries will apply in those two states and the redistributions have been done fairly and with maximum transparency, as always.

Elsewhere the boundaries will be the same as in May 2019.

How are Senators elected?

Since 1949 the system has been one of proportional representation.

That means within each state six Senate seats are roughly distributed according to a party’s share of the vote. So a party getting about 12% of the vote would win one seat, about 26% two seats, about 40% three seats and so on.

This is why the Greens do so well at Senate elections compared to the House of Representatives. With about 10% of the vote for both houses, they presently have nine senators but only one member of the House of Representatives.

This differs from preferential voting for the House of Representatives, introduced in 1918, where voters number candidates in the order of their preferences – first choice, second choice and so on.

How long are senators’ terms?

Senators from the states serve six year terms, and those from the territories serve three year terms.

However, a system of rotation means half the senators’ terms end every three years. So in most elections, half the Senate spots are contested.

But there’s an exception to this rule. Every so often there’s a “double dissolution”, where the entire Senate is elected. That happened most recently in 2016. This parliament was dissolved early because there was a dispute between the two houses, so the entire parliament faced the people.

In a double dissolution, half the senators from the states get three year terms instead of six. This is based on the number of votes.

One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Larissa Waters of the Greens are good examples of how it works.

Both were elected among the 12 Queenslanders at the 2016 election. However, Hanson was one of the six more popular vote winners, and Waters one of the six less popular vote winners. So, Hanson got a six-year term and Waters a three-year term.

Waters won a higher proportion of votes in the 2019 election, so was elected to a six-year term, expiring on June 30 2025.

Hanson is up for re-election this year, and I predict she will be elected to a six-year term, and therefore her term would expire on 30 June 2028.

Issues with our voting system

About 16.5 million votes will be cast for each house of parliament.

Based on the last two federal elections, I estimate the informal vote will be roughly 800,000 for the House of Representatives (4.9%) and 650,000 for the Senate (3.9%).

By world standards that’s a high number of informal votes, which is thought by many to be a blot on our democracy.

Two reasons for this are because we have compulsory voting, and because ballot papers are unnecessarily complex and voter unfriendly, particularly for the Senate.

The United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand have voluntary voting and simple one-house ballot papers, and the rate of informal voting is negligible. Some argue we should copy them.

There’s also a lack of rules around campaign finance – the stand-out case being the obscene spending by Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

I argue there’s no need to reform the Constitution and the democratic values it upholds. But there should be legislative changes to improve the system. I expect some democratic reforms during the next term, 2022-25, the 47th Parliament.

These changes wouldn’t require a referendum, just negotiation to ensure passage through both houses. By contrast, changes to the Constitution require a referendum. For that reason reforms by referendum are rare.

Malcolm Mackerras is Distinguished Fellow at the PM Glynn Institute, Australian Catholic University.

Why public trust in elections is being undermined by global disinformation campaigns

Originally published April 28, 2022 10.27am EDT on The Conversation.

Author: Christoph Bluth

Public trust in elections is being targeted around the world by a series of disinformation campaigns from a range of international players. This is giving rise to an increasing lack of trust in how votes are counted.

The almost unlimited capacity for individuals and organisations to publish information using websites (only limited by time and manpower), social media and other outlets has given disinformation campaigns a set of new media to manipulate in the last decade.

With the Brazilian election coming up this autumn, analysts have already suggested that public trust in voting processes is being targeted, with similar tactics to those used around the last US presidential election. Like former US president Donald Trump, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has started undermining public confidence in the democratic process by claiming that elections were fraudulent.

Bolsonaro has also raised questions about both electronic voting and the vote-counting process.

Disinformation campaigns often begin well before elections to create confusion and allow the losers to challenge results. During Mexico’s 2021 election disinformation was spread through social networks in a bitter and polarised campaign. There was evidence of organised trolls spreading insults and attacks against candidates, and a rise in fake news stories about the election.

These tactics are being used across the world. The European Parliament said the “most systemic threats to political processes and human rights arise from organised attempts to run coordinated campaigns across multiple social media platforms”. A 2019 report discovered evidence of organised social media manipulation campaigns in 70 different countries, employing armies of “cyber troops” (300,000 in China for instance) to influence public opinion on various issues, and create political chaos. And a US foundation has raised concerns about new state laws shifting election administration powers to political or partisan bodies.

People voting in Mexico’s 2021 election where social media disinformation and fake news tactics were widely reported.Reuters/Alamy

A Chinese disinformation campaign to discredit presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen, and another against Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists were reported on. Twitter took down 900 fake accounts used by the Chinese authorities and another 200,000 new accounts linked with another Chinese network.

How do they work?

Disinformation campaigns often rely on an enormous volume of messages, using a variety of methods. They use traditional media such as newspapers, radio broadcasts and television, but disinformation is also spread via websites, social media, chat rooms, and satellite broadcasting and include a whole mix of texts, photographs and videos using thousands of fake accounts.

Internet “troll farms” are often set up, with teams of people putting out misleading messages to counter political viewpoints or other narratives. These farms employ workers on 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, with daily quotas of 135 posted messages per day, per worker.

One example is the Russian Internet Research Agency (also known as Glavset), ostensibly a private company but one that appears to be funded by the Russian government(now operating under different guises as part of “Project Lakhta”). It spreads Kremlin disinformation on social media using false identities and false information, under different names.

Using a variety of sources that employ different narratives and arguments but point to the same conclusion is more persuasive, because it conceals the fact that the propaganda ultimately derives from the same source. A study conducted by the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government on the use of Twitter as a forum for disinformation found: “Evidence from an analysis of Twitter data reveals that Russian social media trolls exploited racial and political identities to infiltrate distinct groups of authentic users, playing on their group identities.”

Russia is also accused of mounting various campaigns to influence elections, including the presidential elections in the US in 2016 and 2020. Academic analysis of how the Russian Internet Research Agency used social media showed how they specifically targeted “self-described Christian patriots, supporters of the Republican party and of presidential candidate Donald Trump”.

The Russian governing elite believes that the west is committed to transforming the post-Soviet countries using non-military instruments of warfare, including economic instruments, the spreading of ideas about democracy and human rights, and support for NGOs and human rights activists with the purpose of inducing “colour revolutions” that will topple governments. By conducting information warfare Russia claims it is only responding to western methods.

The overall purpose is to create mistrust of the core institutions of liberal democracy including parliaments, mainstream media, elections and the judiciary.

Governments can respond by introducing regulations to combat the spread of disinformation, but this is controversial because it forces governments to define the limits of free speech. In practice, it means introducing and further developing elaborate codes of practice and guidelines for the internet and social media. Another tool is the development of fact-checkingnetworks.

If disinformation creates a widespread public belief that elections are “stolen” or manipulated, it undermines belief in public institutions that are essential to democratic governance. Therefore such disinformation campaigns can pose a very serious threat to liberal democracy and public order. This is the outcome that some of the state actors are seeking. The development of the instruments to deal with this challenge is only just beginning.

Christoph Bluth is Professor of International Relations and Security at the University of Bradford

Ireland has moved to improve electoral integrity – other countries should follow suit

Originally published July 15, 2022 on LSE’s EUROPP

Authors: Harsh Vasani, Toby James, and Holly Ann Garnett

On 13 July, Ireland passed an Electoral Reform Bill aimed at improving the country’s electoral integrity. Harsh Vasani, Toby S. James and Holly Ann Garnett assess the likely impact of the bill and the potential lessons other countries could draw from it.

Throughout the world, there have been concerns democracy has been ‘backsliding’ and that electoral integrity is under threat. A Summit for Democracy was hosted by the United States in December last year to ‘set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal and to tackle the greatest threats faced by democracies’. Countries have been asked to make commitments to how they will improve democracy and elections.

The Irish government committed to establishing an independent statutory Electoral Commission. Academic research on electoral integrity and international best practices are clear that those involved in running and regulating elections should be independent from those standing from elections. However, many countries retain a system whereby government minsters have considerable control over electoral watchdogs, which compromises their independence. When Ireland gained independence from Britain, it established a system whereby elections were in the portfolio of a government minister and department – most recently the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

This commitment to establish a statutory, independent Electoral Commission for Ireland was honoured when an Electoral Reform Bill was passed on 13 July. But the Bill went further. The bill also promises the regulation of online political advertising with the aim of ensuring ‘transparency during electoral campaigns and… that our elections remain free from hidden influences on how we vote’.

The legislation came amidst calls to ban cryptocurrency donations to political parties. Given the identity of donors can be concealed when using cryptocurrencies, there are concerns such donations could create an avenue for foreign funding to influence election results. Donations made to political parties will also be scrutinised and the leader of each political party will have to declare to the Standards in Public Office Commission all donations to the party from outside the state, including all contributions, whether in cash or kind. Political parties will also be required to declare all the properties they own.

These reforms are important, too. The wider context is that there are major concerns about the possibility of foreign interference in elections. The alleged Russian interference in US elections cast light on the dangers of foreign interference in elections and manipulation of the electorate. It has been suggested that we have therefore entered an era of ‘cyber elections’.

Ireland’s electoral integrity weak spots

The legislation has been in the news for many weeks vis-à-vis electoral funding, foreign interference, online disinformation, and empowering the election commission. But does it speak to the problems that Ireland actually faces with elections?

The Electoral Integrity Project recently published the 2022 Electoral Integrity Global Report that scores countries on the quality of electoral integrity around the world. The report evaluates all aspects of elections – from the laws through the campaign and voter registration. The report is based on a rolling survey of 4,591 experts across 169 countries. Figure 1 illustrates Ireland’s areas of strength and weakness over the past decade. The data from the Electoral Integrity Project is available online here.

Figure 1: Country-level scores for electoral integrity in Ireland

Note: The figure is based on the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI-8.0) index, 2012-21.

The data shows that Ireland scores the poorest on voter registration. The scores on voter registration were 34 for the period of 2012-18. A comparison with Finland (95-96), Sweden (88-90) and Denmark (93-91), the three highest scorers on the perceptions of electoral integrity (PEI) index, illustrates just how poorly Ireland fares on perceptions of voter registration.

The voter registration index is measured on indicators such as whether some citizens were not listed in the register, the electoral register was inaccurate, or some ineligible electors were registered. Figure 2 illustrates the extent to which these were a problem on a five-point scale. Citizens missing from the electoral register was the greatest problem – but it was also the case that the register contained ineligible electors.

Figure 2: Electoral registration problems in Ireland

Note: The figure is based on the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (PEI-8.0) index, 2012-21.

The good news is that the Bill also contains provisions to improve voter registration. These include a move to continuous registration based on an individual application, data sharing to assist registration authorities in updating and maintaining the register, and annual reporting by registration authorities to the newly established Commission.

The establishment of the Commission could therefore play an important role in redressing these problems in the coming years. In particular, the legislation enables the Commission to undertake research on the accuracy and completeness of the register – research which has generated important insights in the UK to reveal the extent of the ‘missing millions’.

Other dimensions of electoral integrity have fared better in Ireland. Vote counting and results work very well. The electoral finance index is more troubled with a score of 64. But it is worth noting that problems with money and elections are a huge problem worldwide – the Electoral Integrity Project report found that it was the weakest aspect of elections worldwide. The world should therefore watch closely to see if Ireland’s new legislation works – and whether there is an improvement in future report scores.

Looking forward: automatic voter registration?

Given that voter registration is the main weakness, it is notable that there are, however, policy fixes which are not legislated for, which should be considered in future years as the Electoral Reform Bill beds in. Many countries have recently moved to introduce some aspect of automatic voter registration. Rather than relying on individual applications (a requirement for individual applications reduces voter registration levels), voters can be registered by the authorities without requiring electors to take action. Comparative research shows that this can improve completeness and does not affect accuracy.

It is difficult for countries like Ireland to introduce this system without a civil population register. A more appropriate approach, as a recent voter registration report shows, is therefore to automatically enrol the population when they reach critical life moments such as becoming eligible to vote for the first time. Nonetheless, Ireland has been proactive in responding to the call to strengthen democratic electoral institutions. Other countries should do the same, and the Electoral Integrity Report can help them to do so.

Harsh Vasani is a PhD student in the School of Development at the University of East Anglia.

Toby S. James is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of East Anglia. He is co-Director of the Electoral Integrity Project and Editor in Chief of Policy Studies.

Holly Ann Garnett is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and cross-appointed faculty at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She is co-Director of the Electoral Integrity Project.

Featured image credit: European Council

Elections: a global ranking rates US weakest among liberal democracies

Originally published June 1, 2022 8.21am EDT on The Conversation.

Authors: Toby S. James, Holly Ann Garnett

A disappointing slide for the US after an election blighted by disinformation. Aaron Burson/Unsplash

Defending democracy has suddenly become one of the central challenges of our age. The land war in Ukraine is widely considered a front line between autocratic rule and democratic freedom. The United States continues to absorb the meaning of the riot that took place on January 6 2021 in an attempt to overthrow the result of the previous year’s election. Elsewhere, concerns have been raised that the pandemic could have provided cover for governments to postpone elections.

Elections are an essential part of democracy. They enable citizens to hold their governments to account for their actions and bring peaceful transitions in power. Unfortunately, elections often fall short of these ideals. They can be marred by problems such as voter intimidation, low turnout, fake news and the under-representation of women and minority candidates.

Our new research report provides a global assessment of the quality of national elections around the world from 2012-21, based on nearly 500 elections across 170 countries. The US is the lowest ranked liberal democracy in the list. It comes just 15th in the 29 states in the Americas, behind Costa Rica, Brazil, Trinidad & Tobago and others, and 75th overall.

An election in Costa Rica, which ranked well in the list. Ingmar Zahorsky/FLickr, CC BY-NC-SA

Why is the United States so low?

There were claims made by former president Donald Trump of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Theses claims were baseless, but they still caused the US elections ranking to fall.

Elections with disputed results score lower on our rankings because a key part of democracy is the peaceful transition of power through accepted results, rather than force and violence. Trump’s comments led to post-election violence as his supporters stormed the Capitol building and sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the outcome amongst much of America.

This illustrates that electoral integrity is not just about designing laws – it is also dependent on candidates and supporters acting responsibly throughout the electoral process.

The Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index by country (most recent election) and region: Perceptions of electoral integrity are measured by experts for each country one month after polls close. Experts are asked to assess the quality of national elections on 11 sub-dimensions: electoral laws; electoral procedures; district boundaries; voter registration; party registration; media coverage; campaign finance; voting process; vote count; results; and electoral authorities. These items sum to an overall Electoral Integrity Index scored from 0 to 100. F. Electoral Integrity Project.

Problems with US elections run much deeper than this one event, however. Our report shows that the way electoral boundaries are drawn up in the US are a main area of concern. There has been a long history of gerrymandering, where political districts are craftily drawn by legislators so that populations that are more likely to vote for them are included in a given constituency – as was recently seen in North Carolina.

Voter registration and the polls is another problem. Some US states have recently implemented laws that make it harder to vote, such as requiring ID, which is raising concern about what effect that will have on turnout. We already know that the costs, time and complexity of completing the ID process, alongside the added difficulties for those with high residential mobility or insecure housing situations, makes it even less likely that under-represented groups will take part in elections.

Nordics on top, concern about Russia

The Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Denmark came out on top in our rankings. Finland is commonly described as having a pluralistic media landscape, which helps. It also provides public funding to help political parties and candidates contest elections. A recent report from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights found a “high level of confidence in all of the aspects of the electoral process”.

Cape Verde has the greatest quality of electoral integrity in Africa. Taiwan, Canada and New Zealand are ranked first for their respective continents.

Electoral integrity in Russia has seen a further decline following the 2021 parliamentary elections. A pre-election report warned of intimidation and violence against journalists, and the media “largely promote policies of the current government”. Only Belarus ranks lower in Europe.

Globally, electoral integrity is lowest in Comoros, the Central African Republic and Syria.

Money matters

How politicians and political parties receive and spend money was found to be the weakest part of the electoral process in general. There are all kinds of threats to the integrity of elections that revolve around campaign money. Where campaign money comes from, for example, could affect a candidate’s ideology or policies on important issues. It is also often the case that the candidate who spends the most money wins – which means unequal opportunities are often part and parcel of an election.

It helps when parties and candidates are required to publish transparent financial accounts. But in an era where “dark money” can be more easily transferred across borders, it can be very hard to trace where donations really come from.

There are also solutions for many of the other problems, such as automatic voter registration, independence for electoral authorities, funding for electoral officials and electoral observation.

Democracy may need to be defended in battle, as we are currently seeing in Ukraine. But it also needs to be defended before it comes to all-out conflict, through discussion, protest, clicktivism and calls for electoral reforms.

Disclosure statement:

Toby James has previously received funding from the Canadian SSHRC, AHRC, ESRC, Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Electoral Commission, Nuffield Foundation, and the McDougall Trust. His current research is funded by the Canadian SSHRC and ESRC.

Holly Ann Garnett receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Defence Academy Research Programme. She has previously received funding from: the British Academy, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the NATO Public Diplomacy Division, the American Political Science Association Centennial Centre, and the Conference of Defence Associations.

Spotlight: Hungary's April 2022 Elections

Amid a backdrop of international uncertainty in Eastern Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán heads into the April 2022 parliamentary elections facing a unified opposition, his party’s first unified opposition since 2014.

Orbán, Hungary’s Prime Minister since 2010 (and also 1998-2002), faces increasing pressure domestically and internationally, as opposing parties and members of the international community alike criticize his policy stances, including LGBT issues, election laws, and immigration. Orbán and his Fidesz party, in a nominal coalition with the Christian Democratic People’s Party, have dominated Hungarian Parliament since the 2010 elections, when they took a 2/3rds majority, and subsequently passed a new constitution which curbed judicial independence, voting rights, religious freedoms, and more. Since then, Orbán has maintained his grip on power, winning elections by large margins in 2014 and 2018, and passing measures to cement himself in power. But such measures haven’t been as successful as they seemed: in 2019 local elections, opposition parties gained control of 11 cities, including Budapest, up from 3 in the election cycle prior, leveraging scandals against Fidesz party candidates and incumbents towards the end of the campaign cycle, undermining Fidesz’ typically rigid messaging, and frequently choosing to unify their opposition into support for one candidate. In next month’s parliamentary election, with a unified opposition galvanized by the momentum of the 2019 elections, polls show that Fidesz might be facing their most competitive national election in more than a decade.

Heading into the 2022 election, the opposition parties seem intent to remember the lessons from three years prior. 6 opposition parties formed a coalition, United for Hungary, selecting one candidate to lead them into the parliamentary election. After a competitive two round primary, Peter Marki-Zay, an independent and conservative who previously spent time living in the United States and Canada, narrowly defeated Klara Dobrev, a social democrat. Marki-Zay, mayor of the city of Hodmezovasarhely, has emphasized a foreign policy and governing philosophy that is diametrically opposed to Orbán’s, moving towards the West and “Western values,” while simultaneously criticizing Orbán’s growing ties with global autocracies like Russia and China. Lacking previous ties to Hungarian political parties, he has attacked Orbán and Fidesz from the right, accusing the government of not representing true conservative or Christian values.

The opposition’s efforts to remain a unified front have not been ineffective. Polling data dating back to December 2020 has shown that United for Hungary has stayed close to Fidesz, including, at several points in early 2021, taking the lead. As of February 16, 2022, Fidesz held just a 4% lead over the coalition, with no other opposition parties garnering over 5% support. But close polls don’t necessarily portend close elections, especially considering the electoral reforms of the government. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), responding to these moves, have called for a “full-scale international election observation mission” for the 2022 elections. A rarity for European Union members, the full-scale mission was recommended after the ODIHR issued a report in the runup to this year’s election, and more than sixty members of European Parliament from five parties and nineteen countries called for one, after a 2018 limited mission found faults with how that election had been run, and after the ODIHR met with individuals in Hungary.

The Hungarian government under Orbán has taken significant steps towards cementing their control and opposing Christian liberal democracy models that are commonplace in Western Europe. The government has supported legislation which would effectively force opposition parties to run on a single ballot line, curbed freedoms of the press, taken a publicly hard-line stance against immigration, and has openly promoted the establishment of a Christian illiberal democracy. Accusing Western European political elites of wanting to move into a “post-Christian era,” and arguing that liberal democracy is narrow-minded when it comes to opposing political views, Orbán’s rhetoric has remained staunchly populistic and nationalistic, and often, his policies have mimicked that.

Even at the ballot box, as Hungarians go to the polls to elect their Members of Parliament, Orbán’s purported Christian conservatism is evident. As voters cast ballots for their elected officials, voters will decide on a “child protection” referendum, which is modeled off Russian laws prohibiting “‘gay propaganda’ among minors,” and limits sex education. Even before the referendum has passed, Hungarian courts found that publications comparing an LGBT association to pedophiles are acceptable, basing their ruling partly off of Orbán’s rhetoric. Although some data suggests that Orbán’s populist attempts to play to homophobia to fire up his base is failing amid drops in Hungarian homophobia, he has doubled down, hoping such rhetoric might have similar effects to his anti-immigrant rhetoric in years passed.

Yet, even if the opposition coalition fails to win a majority or plurality, they appear poised to deal a significant blow to Orbán’s designs. Much of the government’s efforts to shift the direction of the nation has been built on the back of their parliamentary supermajority, holding more than 2/3rds of the seats since it first took power in 2010. Short of taking power, United for Hungary stands to make gains across the country, potentially bringing the government coalition to below 2/3rds of the seats, making it harder for the government coalition to pass legislation, though not enough to undo some of the harm brought by Fidesz’ years in power. The coalition has remained well-unified during the campaign, but following the election, it remains to be seen whether the parties can transcend ideological boundaries and maintain an effective government or opposition coalition in parliament.

Hungary stands at the intersection of a plethora of hot-button issues. Amid the Orbán government’s strengthening ties with Russia, Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has created millions of refugees, some of whom have crossed the Hungarian border, as Orbán shifts his anti-immigrant rhetoric, to an extent. Orbán has spent time in the wake of the Russian invasion working to maintain the delicate balance between supporting Russia to the betterment of the Hungarian people, through such means as negotiating better gas prices, and maintaining their criticism of the invasion of Ukraine. The government also faces pushback from the West, particularly the European Union, putting further pressure on the nation as they face potential decisions about their future. Even amidst the turmoil, a unified opposition heading into the April 2022 parliamentary election shows that the Orbán government is vulnerable. Moving forward, even after the election reveals the strength of Fidesz and United for Hungary, questions remain over the size of the majority Fidesz can garner, and whether the coalition can remain a cogent block beyond this campaign.

Nick Lieggi is a sophomore at Emory University, majoring in political science and history, and enjoys spending his time writing and studying electoral systems across the globe.

Elections and COVID-19: Health and safety in polling stations

BY: Erik Asplund, Lars Heuver, Fakiha Ahmed, Bor Stevense, Sulemana Umar, Toby James and Alistair Clark

Originally Published 02/05/2021 in the International IDEA Blog

Image credit: Republic of Korea National Election Commission

At the start of the pandemic, many countries postponed elections. From June 2020, the trend shifted to holding elections. Thanks to information sharing and peer-to-peer exchanges, election authorities gained an understanding of the risks and prevention/mitigation measures. To date, more than 100 countries and territories have held national or subnational elections that were either on schedule or initially postponed with health and safety measures. But what measures have been introduced so far? What measures have been adopted by countries that have held elections? Are the measures respected by stakeholders? Was voting safe?

Este artículo está disponible en español.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this commentary are those of the authors. This commentary is independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed do not necessarily represent the institutional position of International IDEA, its Board of Advisers or its Council of Member States.

This article helps to address these questions by presenting information on the health and safety measures introduced into polling stations around the world in 2020. Data was collected from electoral management bodies (EMBs), state institutions, media, and election observation reports from 52 national elections (in 51 countries) in 2020 on how in-person voting was implemented. This was the vast majority of the countries that held national elections but which also had cases of COVID-19 at the time. This analysis forms part of a series that has covered campaign limitations and will cover other parts of the electoral cycle, including special voting arrangements and international elections observation. It forms part of an ongoing study between International IDEA and the Electoral Integrity Project on COVID-19 and elections.

Health and safety guidelines 

One of the first steps that EMBs or state institutions took to limit infection risk, often in collaboration with health ministries, was to introduce health and safety guidelines for the election (See Table 1). The guidelines typically focused on the voting operations or the entire electoral cycle (nomination processes, training, voter registration, campaigning, voting operations, set-up of polling stations, counting and tabulation, result announcements). Out of this sample of 20 sets of national guidelines from 19 different countries, 1 covered nomination processes, 6 training, 3 voter registration, 7 campaigning, 18 voting operations, 18 set-up of polling stations, 11 counting and tabulation, and 1 addressed result announcements.

Table 1. COVID-19 health and safety guidelines by country

Source: Authors, constructed using EMB and country information.

Health and safety measures in polling stations

Health and safety measures for polling stations typically included rules on social distancing, the use of handwashing facilities (or hand sanitizers and disinfectants), ventilation of the polling station, the cleaning of voting materials, and personal protective equipment for polling officials. Almost all countries that have held national elections in 2020 have adopted combinations of these measures (see Table 2).

Beyond these general measures, many countries introduced innovative and extraordinary measures to decrease infection risk. These measures are country and election specific, which may have been exacerbated by spikes in coronavirus. In Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Trinidad and Tobago, the EMBs organized mock polling stations to simulate election day and see whether the new practices would work. In Ghana and Malawi, "COVID-19 ambassadors" were tasked to manage compliance with voters' safety measures. In Jordan and Venezuela, the military took on this role. In Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Italy, Poland, and Singapore, priority queues were in place. Elderly, pregnant women and other vulnerable people could skip the lines at polling stations. For the Bolivian Presidential election, the voter rolls were divided into two-time slots for voting between 08:00-12:30 and 12:30-17:00 to prevent clustering. Commercial activities were also restricted within 100 meters of polling stations, and voting personnel were selected outside the risk groups (between the ages of 18 to 50). In Romania, upon arrival, the elector's temperature was measured at the polling station entrance, and the maximum number of persons at the same time at a polling station was set at a maximum of 15. At the entry and exit, voters had to disinfect their hands. Pens were provided at the polling stations. In Switzerland, besides adhering to the standard COVID-19 mitigating protocols, people were also encouraged to use the Swiss COVID-19 App. The App's purpose is to help stop COVID-19 from further spreading and to detect early possible second wave and tackle it effectively through contact tracing. As of 23 September, it has been downloaded over 2 million times.

Were measures respected?

Based on a review of 31 Electoral Observer Mission’s (EOMs) reports from various missions in 2020, 13 reports on Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Montenegro, Myanmar, Niger, Serbia,  Seychelles, and Tanzania suggest that restrictions were often not consistently respected and poorly enforced. In general, EOMs stated that compliance to health and safety measured in place varied inside polling stations, and enforcing restrictions outside polling stations was difficult most of the time. The use of masks and disinfectant was followed in most cases. Adherence to social distancing rules turned out to be to most challenging in many cases due to polling stations not being spacious enough for regulations to be adhered to.

Table 2. Health and safety measures introduced during the 2020 national elections to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Source: Authors, constructed using International IDEA, media reports, and EMB data. Note: This table is based on 51 countries that held 52 direct national elections and referendums from 21 February until 31 December 2020. All of the countries included in the table had one or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection. The table does not cover health and safety measures introduced during national by-elections or subnational elections. 

Was in-person voting safe?

Have all these reforms helped to protect public health? To date there have been very few reports linking voting arrangements with community transmission. However, some studies have been carried out and are at times contradictory. For example, in one study, focusing on the Wisconsin, USA, primary election showed “statistically and economically significant association between in-person voting density and the spread of COVID-19 two to three weeks after the election” whereas another study focusing on the City of Milwaukee from the Wisconsin CDC found no clear increase in cases, hospitalizations, or deaths. Beyond the US, health authorities in South Korea concluded that no local transmission occurred from the Parliamentary election held in April 2020, and a scientific article published in August substantiated this claim. In contrast, a French study on municipal elections in March 2020 suggested an increase in numbers of hospitalizations due to the polls, but mainly in areas already showing high transmission levels. However, they found that the election did not contribute to virus transmission in areas with already low levels of COVID-19.

There needs to be caution in interpreting this evidence. Without a consistent and robust estimation methodology which can link voting arrangements directly as a cause of transmission to individual voters, separate to ordinary community transmission, it is difficult to know when and where the virus was in fact caught. Variations in data availability between countries, and different methods and approaches among studies, make it very difficult to come to general conclusions. Media reports could also be less reliable in this respect; focusing on the anecdotal rather than aggregate picture-and may have the potential to spread misinformation.  Nonetheless, Votebeat, a nonpartisan reporting project, provides some anecdotal evidence that many US poll workers tested positive during the November 2020 Presidential election.

Conclusion

Although risks remain, it appears that countries are more willing to hold elections because of an improved understanding of the virus. Time has also elapsed since the pandemic started, which has enabled lesson drawing from overseas, risk management plans to be adapted, and election planning to take place. Health and safety measures will clearly require further investment in elections to protect the safety of staff, campaigners, and votes. They will also be needed to assure citizens that voting is safe—so that turnout is not affected. The early publication of guidelines will help them to be implemented—and mechanisms for enforcement need to be considered by policy makers too.

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Main findings on health and safety measures in polling stations

• Health and safety measures have been adopted by almost all countries running elections and were similar across countries.

• Some countries have adopted more safety measures than others.

• Compliance to health and safety measures varied inside polling stations, outside was difficult to enforce. Problems related mostly to space so that social distancing could be adhered to (rarely respected or possible)

• The use of masks and disinfectants seems to be in place and broadly respected inside polling stations in most countries.

• Further investment will be required in health and safety mechanisms for elections to ensure health and safety, but also to prevent voter turnout declines.

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About the Author

Erik Asplund is a Programme Officer in the Electoral Processes Programme, International IDEA. He is currently managing the Global Overview of COVID-19: Impact on Elections project. Other focus areas include Electoral Risk Management, Financing of Elections and Training in Electoral Administration with an emphasis on BRIDGE and Electoral Training Facilities.

Lars Heuver is a graduate student in Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University, currently doing an internship at International IDEA. Fakiha Ahmed is a Master's student in Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University and is currently doing her internship at International IDEA. Bor Stevense is a second-year Masters student at the University of Uppsala for the Peace and Conflict Studies programme, currently doing an internship at International IDEA. Sulemana Umar is a second-year Masters's student at Lund University pursuing International Development and Management Programme. He is currently an intern at International IDEA. Toby S. James is Professor of Politics and Public Policy in the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia. His most recent books are Comparative Electoral Management (Routledge, 2020) and Building Inclusive Elections (Routledge, 2020). He is co-convenor of the Electoral Management Network. Alistair Clark is Reader in Politics at Newcastle University. He has written widely on electoral integrity and administration, electoral and party politics. He is the author of Political Parties in the UK, 2e (Palgrave 2018). He tweets at @ClarkAlistairJ.

Lars Heuver, Fakiha Ahmed, Bor Stevense, Sulemana Umar, Toby James and Alistair Clark

Elections and COVID-19: How election campaigns took place in 2020

BY: Erik Asplund, Lars Heuver, Fakiha Ahmed, Bor Stevense, Sulemana Umar, Toby James and Alistair Clark

Originally Published 02/02/2021 in the International IDEA Blog

Image credit: Andrew Keymaster on Unsplash

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a profound strain on electoral democracy worldwide. Many elections have been postponed, while others have been held with adaptation.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this commentary are those of the authors. This commentary is independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed do not necessarily represent the institutional position of International IDEA, its Board of Advisers or its Council of Member States.

One key aspect of the democratic process that has been thought to be affected by the pandemic is electoral campaigning. Campaigns are opportunities for political parties and candidates to spread their ideas about how public policies should change—or remain the same—in the future. Campaigns allow public conversations and deliberation about the future of the country. They allow citizens to weigh up their options when they arrive at the ballot box in a more informed way. Campaigns also play a critical performative role in democracy. They are rituals that signal that the democratic process is underway.

But there is also the risk that campaigns could involve not just the spreading of ideas—but the COVID-19 virus. There have therefore been prominent and ongoing debates about whether the campaign should be restricted to protect public health. Which countries have introduced such restrictions? What alternative forms of campaigning have been adopted? Do campaigns really spread the virus, or is this a convenient opportunity for incumbent governments to clampdown on political activity?

This article helps to address these questions by presenting information on political campaigns around the world in 2020. Data was collected from media and election observation reports from 52 national elections (in 51 countries) in 2020 on how the campaigns operated. This was the vast majority of the countries that held national elections and which also had cases of COVID-19 at the time. This analysis forms part of a series that will cover other parts of the electoral cycle, including health and safety arrangements in polling stations, special voting arrangements; and, international election observation. It forms part of an ongoing study between International IDEA and the Electoral Integrity Project on COVID-19 and elections.

Limitations to traditional campaigning

Roughly half of the countries studied saw limitations on traditional campaigning because of government restrictions on movement and public gatherings. Restrictions included limits on the number of participants allowed to attend public gatherings and complete bans on political rallies or events. In total, 22 of out 51 countries (43 per cent) saw COVID-19 restrictions that limited some freedom of association and assembly during election periods (See Table 1).

For example, ahead of the July 2020 Parliamentary elections, Singapore banned public gatherings effectively by not granting permits for election meetings, including rallies and gatherings at assembly centers. Access to nomination centers was also restricted. In Montenegro, public gatherings were limited to 100 people, and rallies were banned ahead of the August 2020 Parliamentary elections. In Jamaica, ahead of the August 2020 General election, political motorcades were not allowed, meetings were limited to 20 people, and canvassing was restricted to five people per group. In Jordan, gatherings were limited to 20 people, and rallies were banned ahead of the November 2020 General election. Furthermore, candidates and supporters were expected to refrain from any party celebrations and respect a four-day nationwide curfew directly after the vote.

Door to door campaigning was often still allowed. In Singapore this could take place, but with no more than five people per group. Each group was also required to keep a1m distance from other groups, should wear masks, needed to keep their interactions brief and avoid shaking hands. A restriction of five persons per campaign group was also in place in Jamaica. 

Other health measures that have been introduced include temperature checks for campaign events  (Myanmar), sanitation of indoor venues (Chile), a maximum time duration during gatherings (Sri Lanka), as well as dedicated or sanitized microphones (Myanmar, Sri Lanka), among others.

Were restrictions observed?

Restrictions may have formally been put in place, but Election Observation and media reports have noticed that large scale in-person rallies have sometimes gone ahead despite government limits. In Myanmar, the limit of 50 people who could be present at a rally were not complied with, nor enforced by the authorities. Also according to ANFREL, guidelines on social distancing and usage of face masks was not respected during campaign activities. In Moldova, restrictions allowed no more than 50 people to join public events, something that was not always respected by several candidates. The OSCE/ODIHR report about the elections in Poland said that just before the second round, political campaigns organized many direct meetings with voters that attracted large gatherings, during which COVID-19 restrictions were not respected and poorly enforced. The Citizens Engagement Platform Seychelles (Ceps) noted that health regulations were not entirely appreciated by candidates and activists during the campaigns. Moreover, in Malawi, mass campaign rallies leading up to the presidential election were reported despite that gathering was restricted to 100 people.

The move to remote campaigns 

With these restrictions in place, many political parties and candidates did, however, campaign through social media and other online platforms to get their policy options to resonate with prospective voters. Indeed, the pandemic may have helped accelerate a shift in campaigning in this direction. In Singapore, parties discussed their plans through e-rallies on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TV and radio. In Kuwait, social media was used extensively, particularly Twitter, Zoom, and WhatsApp, as in-person meetings at 'diwaniyas' (party reception areas) were banned. In the USA, ahead of the November 2020 Presidential election, both the republican and democratic parties made use of social media and even held party conventions online before adopting non-traditional rallies such as drive-in events and those held at airports.

Non-digital mechanisms have also been used during the pandemic by parties and candidates to convey their message, especially in countries where there is a lack of sustainable internet penetration. Examples include short-message service (Mali), telemarketing (USA), postal mailings (Serbia), and TV, newspapers, and radio talks show and political advertising (Chile, South Africa, Dominican Republic, Poland,  Seychelles, among others). Some of these—such as TV, newspapers and radio shows—are likely to be a continuation of pre-existing campaign practices.

Are campaign events safe?

Have all these reforms been necessary to protect public health? Or are they disproportionate restrictions on political freedoms? There have been some reports claiming that coronavirus spread because of elections held in 2020. There needs to be caution in taking this evidence as-read. Without a robust methodology which can link campaign events directly to transmission separate to ordinary community transmission, it is difficult to know when and where the virus was in fact caught. Media reports could also be less reliable in this respect, focusing on the anecdotal rather than aggregate picture—and may be more likely to spread misinformation. Nonetheless, the reports provide some useful anecdotal information suggesting campaign events can be sources of transmission. For example, exceptions from one study suggested that 30,000 people were infected and expected that around 700 would die of COVID-19 due to the 18 outdoor rallies organized by the Trump campaign. In Burkina Faso, according to a local newspaper, the large gathering during the electoral campaigns could also be attributed to an increase in coronavirus cases.

Exceptions at the subnational level include Malaysia's Sabah state election, where instructions for campaigning during the pandemic from the Electoral Commission were not adhered to during campaigns. After the elections, the Prime Minister conceded that the recent spike in COVID-19 could be attributed to the political campaigns. Ten politicians and three election officials tested positive for coronavirus after the elections. According to media reports, 20 candidates contesting in the November 2020 Brazil Municipal elections died of COVID-19.  In France, both Le Figaro and France Télévisions reported stories about the election and the further spread of coronavirus. Some candidates and polling officials had either shown symptoms, been diagnosed as having the virus, or passed away shortly after the election due to the virus. While it is difficult to know the exact total number of candidates who stood for election in each of these elections, it is likely to have been in the thousands in each country. 

The balancing act between public health protection and democratic discussion and contestation is, therefore, an important one. Some adaptation of the electoral process is clearly needed to preserve human life given the known risks. However, freedom of expression is crucial to campaigning and the ability of ideas and information to flow during the electoral process should be restricted as minimally as possible. Given that different aspects of the electoral campaign has a different focus in different countries—bespoke rather than ‘one sizes fits all’  approaches will probably be needed.

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Table 1. Limits or bans on traditional campaigning ahead of elections in 2020 by country

Limit on number of participants at public gatherings:

Burkina Faso (50), Croatia (10 indoors),  Guinea (100 for 18 October 2020 election), Iceland (100),  Jamaica (20), Jordan (20), Malawi (100), Mali (50), Moldova (50), Montenegro (50 indoors and 100 outdoors), Myanmar (50),  North Macedonia (1,000), Poland (50-150), Romania (20 indoors, and 50 outdoors), Serbia (50-500), Sri Lanka (100), USA (depending on the state)

Political rallies or events banned:

Croatia (ban on holding public events and large gatherings), Dominican Republic (rallies banned),  Iran (candidates barred from campaigning on the streets), Jamaica (motorcades banned), Jordan (banned election rallies), Kuwait (rallies banned), Montenegro (public gatherings and rallies banned),  Poland (public gatherings were officially prohibited) Serbia (Campaign suspended), Singapore (rallies banned), Seychelles (rallies banned), USA (depending on the state)

No information found on campaign limitations or bans:

Algeria, Belarus, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Czech Republic, Egypt, Ghana, Georgia, Guinea (22 March 2020), Israel, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Lithuania, Mongolia, New Zealand, Niger, Russia, Tanzania, South Korea, St. Vincent  and the Grenadines, Suriname, Syria, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela.

(Source: Authors, constructed using International IDEA, EOM and media reports and EMB and country data.)

Note: Countries included more than once in the table had both limitations and bans on rallies during different periods. This table is based on a dataset of 51 countries that held 52 direct national elections and referendums during the period 21 February until 31 December 2020. All of the countries included in the dataset had one or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection. The dataset does not cover national by-elections.

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Main findings on campaigns

• Many governments are limiting traditional campaigning as part of broader COVID-19 measures. Typically, by banning or reducing the number of people who can attend campaign events.

• Some observations and media reports find that campaign limitations and health and safety measures are not being respected or enforced.

• Many EMBs, in collaboration with health ministries, introduced health and safety guidelines for political parties, candidates, and supporters. 

• There are some anecdotal country reports that campaigns have led to increased cases of COVID-19 and deaths, although these need to be treated carefully.

• Remote campaigning has increased in many countries as a result of the restrictions, especially on social media.

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About the Author

Erik Asplund is a Programme Officer in the Electoral Processes Programme, International IDEA. He is currently managing the Global Overview of COVID-19: Impact on Elections project. Other focus areas include Electoral Risk Management, Financing of Elections and Training in Electoral Administration with an emphasis on BRIDGE and Electoral Training Facilities.

Lars Heuver is a graduate student in Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University, currently doing an internship at International IDEA. Fakiha Ahmed is a Master's student in Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University and is currently doing her internship at International IDEA. Bor Stevense is a second-year Masters student at the University of Uppsala for the Peace and Conflict Studies programme, currently doing an internship at International IDEA. Sulemana Umar is a second-year Masters's student at Lund University pursuing International Development and Management Programme. He is currently an intern at International IDEA. Toby S. James is Professor of Politics and Public Policy in the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia. His most recent books are Comparative Electoral Management (Routledge, 2020) and Building Inclusive Elections (Routledge, 2020). He is co-convenor of the Electoral Management Network. Alistair Clark is Reader in Politics at Newcastle University. He has written widely on electoral integrity and administration, electoral and party politics. He is the author of Political Parties in the UK, 2e (Palgrave 2018). He tweets at @ClarkAlistairJ.

Lars Heuver, Fakiha Ahmed, Bor Stevense, Sulemana Umar, Toby James and Alistair Clark

Wales is giving 16-year-olds the vote – but they may have to wait a little longer

Toby S. James considers how elections in Wales are being adapted to the pandemic.

The scene was set for May 6 2021 to be a historic day for democracy in Wales. It would be the first time that 16 and 17 year olds would be able to vote in an election in UK history.

It still might be. Although the pandemic has forced the country into lockdowns, the Welsh government says it is committed to the elections going ahead. The Senedd has passed legislation that would enable voting over several days, with safety in mind. However, that same legislation also makes it possible to delay the vote for up to six months.

Although we naturally should always want elections to be held, there are strong arguments for delaying the polls this time. Holding the election will bring together millions of people. Roughly 625,000 people entered a polling station at the last Senedd election in May 2016 (a further 395,878 voted by post). Add to this the thousands of poll workers, presiding officers, counting officers, let alone campaigners outside the polling stations, or a family member hanging around outside to hold the dog, and you have a lot of people coming together. Coronavirus spreads quickly.

Should the advice be from the Medical Office of Wales that a delay is necessary to protect human life, then democracy will have to wait a little while. Election postponements are not always power grabs. There have indeed been many delays around the world during the pandemic, with elections in at least 75 countries being postponed in the last year. Most of these were reorganised relatively quickly.

It’s also harder to hold a high-quality election in a pandemic. Some groups, candidates or parties may be left at a disadvantage. There have already been claims that bans on leafleting are unfair to small parties. Experience from Europe showed that lockdowns prevented the opposition campaigning in Poland, giving the incumbent president, who still regularly appeared on TV, an advantage.

There is also a danger that people, especially those at higher risk, may be put off voting. Voter turnout has been much lower during the pandemic than it otherwise might have been. Most European nations that have held a parliamentary election since the start of the crisis have seen fewer people participate.

Turnout down. Author, using data from International IDEA., Author provided

Although there are many factors that push turnout up and down, there does seem to be a pandemic decline, probably because people are worried about catching the virus at polling stations.

Elections are also simply more difficult to organise in a pandemic. They rely on an army of poll workers who, research shows, are often elderly and retired – and therefore more vulnerable to COVID. Although the vaccine roll-out is making progress, people are likely to think twice about signing up to work on polling day. Schools and parents may also be reluctant to allow school buildings to be used as polling stations.

How the polls can be held

Elections have been held in over 100 countries since the pandemic began. With partners, the Electoral Integrity Project has investigated how many have adapted to changed conditions.

While social distancing measures and hand sanitiser go a long way to improving safety, early voting is a more powerful tool in a government’s kit. That’s because it makes elections safer, with less risk that turnout will decline.

The argument made for going ahead with the May elections in Wales (and the rest of the UK) is often that the US managed to hold a national election in November. American voters, however, made heavy use of postal voting and early voting. Over 65 million people voted through the post, while a further 36 million voted ahead of the day of the election at specially arranged polling stations.

It would be logistically difficult to enable early voting in Wales at this point because of the need to find extra venues to host polling stations. But this is an important step to prevent a decline in turnout – which suggests it might be worth delaying the May vote.

Political parties should work together to try to reach a consensus about how the election should be run, and whether a delay is necessary. Wales, in particular, has done good work to avoid the risk of the Welsh government delaying (or fast tracking) in a way that might maximise its own political advantage. Local elections in England may yet be postponed by the Conservative government acting unilaterally, but in Wales, the Welsh government must first consult with the chief medical officer for Wales and the independent presiding officer of the Senedd. Then, two thirds of the Senedd would have to vote to agree to the date change.

Wales’ election on May 6 might, therefore, be delayed. But if it is, and if early voting procedures are put in place, then the decision would be through consensus and in line with the lessons that the world has learnt about how to run an election in 2020. It can therefore still be a historic day to be proud of.

This blog was first published on The Conversation.