It was a great honor to have received an International Electoral Award at the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies Symposium and Awards Ceremony.

A team of Erik Asplund, Alistair Clark, Holly Ann Garnett were awarded the International Institutional Engagement Award.

It was for our ESRC funded project on the impact of covid-19 on electoral integrity. We ran the project live during the pandemic providing regular reports, blogs and country briefings. Erik Asplund ran an amazing tracker website of the elections held, postponed, turnout and other key information.

All of the resources were consolidated in a volume which was published this year (over 700 pages long and free to download).

Central to the book was country case studies which were published in real time which enabled countries to learn from each other, after they had run an election. The real stars were therefore the country case study authors – too many to cite here. We have 26 country cases – alongside multiple comparative thematic chapters.

The book hopefully provides an opportunity to consider the lasting lessons from the pandemic – and we set out 11 recommendations for how elections can be prepared for future emergencies. In an era of climate change, war and possible future pandemics, action needs to be taken to protect elections.

The project was a collaboration between the Electoral Integrity Project, International IDEA, University of East Anglia and Newcastle University. My thanks to all the staff who made the it possible.

Finally, a special mention for all of the electoral officials who actually put themselves at personal risk and ran elections during the pandemic, rather than just wrote about it. They are the real heroes of democracy!

Download the book here – and encourage your legislators to undertake the necessary reforms to protect elections: https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/elections-during-emergencies-and-crises