Electoral Integrity

Elections are indispensable for delivering democracy. Whether it is incomplete electoral registers, lack of trust in institutions or attempts to rig the system – there are often defects in the quality of elections.

What is electoral integrity?

There are a variety of competing definitions of electoral integrity, but electoral integrity can be defined as: “the realization of principles in the conduct of elections that are necessary to support the broader realisation of democratic ideals” (James and Alihodzic 2020, 350). These principles include:

How can electoral integrity be measured?

There are a variety of ways in which the quality of elections can be measured including expert assessments and the views of practitioners.

The advantage of practitioner measures of electoral integrity is that electoral officials have unique practice-based, experiential, tacit knowledge about the conduct of elections, and more insights about the technical aspects of administration of which the public and even experts may be unaware.

Using multiple data sources provides the most reliable and triangulated view.

How does electoral integrity quality around the world?

The Electoral Integrity Project’s Annual Global Electoral Integrity Report provides an overview of global patterns of electoral integrity. This is based on the open-source Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index.

Below is the map of electoral integrity in the 2022 report.