Abstract
Elections are at the heart of democracy, and elections that are free and fair provide legitimacy and credibility that helps build confidence in the electoral process and that strengthens democracy. This chapter analyzes five different processes and tools that can impact electoral integrity: election observation, civic education initiatives, biometric voting technology, audits, and social media. Our analysis indicates these tools do have the potential to boost confidence in elections, yet there are important caveats. The processes and tools must be selected carefully based on the electoral environment and goals, they must be adequately resourced, and they must have appropriate oversight and monitoring to ensure they are actually accomplishing what they set out to do. In addition, there are challenges that must be overcome in order to prevent these processes and tools from being used with malfeasance, thereby effectively weakening confidence in elections.
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Notes
- 1.
It is important to differentiate election observation from election monitoring. Both processes involve gathering and assessing information and then making an informed judgement on the accuracy and quality of the electoral process. The key difference is that monitors can intervene in the electoral process, while observers cannot.
- 2.
Recently, however, voice prints, retinal scans, vein patterns, tongue prints, lip movements, ear patterns, gait, dynamic signature, DNA, brain waves (EEG), and even butt prints have all been used for biometric identification, with the latter two still at an experimental stage (Woodward et al. 2003).
- 3.
A traditional audit here means a recount of ballots from a fixed percentage of polling stations, districts, or voting machines, regardless of the margin of victory in the election. A risk-limiting audit, on the other hand, uses statistical models and protocols to determine whether the election count is correct. The exact number of ballots recounted may vary depending on factors such as the margin of victory in the election and/or whether early ballot counts in the audit are presenting evidence that the count was correct.
- 4.
A “hot audit” is an audit that takes place on election day. Sometimes the term is also used in reference to other forms of parallel, election day testing of electronic election systems.
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Krawczyk, K.A., Davis-Roberts, A. (2020). Increasing Confidence in International Elections. In: Brown, M., Hale, K., King, B. (eds) The Future of Election Administration. Elections, Voting, Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14947-5_18
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