Elections

Governments should consider innovative measures such as widely distributing polling stations to safeguard democratic processes during the Covid-19 pandemic. That is the key recommendation from the British Academy’s new briefing on elections, published on 19 August, which WFD colleagues and partners contributed to. 

Drawing upon existing experience of elections held during the COVID-19 pandemic and previous health crises, the briefing identified five key areas of vulnerabilities:

Direct democracy is in danger of being taken over by the wealthy. A survey of 34 countries’ regulation of referenda shows that worldwide, regulation is minimal and open to abuse.

Countries everywhere need urgent reforms of their institutions of direct democracy to ensure that it is not taken over by the wealthy.

International election observers invest significant time and energy in making recommendations designed to improve the integrity and credibility of future elections. Yet observers do not always have the opportunity to monitor the implementation of their recommendations over time, nor the capacity to conduct in-depth research into why certain recommendations may be successfully implemented while others are not.

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