Elections and Special Voting Arrangements

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disruptive effect on elections worldwide. Faced with health risks that a mass event such as an election poses, national decision-makers have had to make two major choices: whether to hold elections as scheduled or postpone them, and whether and how to modify the way elections are conducted. With regard to the second question, both policy and academic debates have focused on the introduction and expansion of special voting arrangements, including early, postal, proxy and remote internet voting, as well as the availability of the mobile ballot box. This chapter examines policy responses to the pandemic in the realm of election management in 27 member states of the European Union (EU), focusing on decisions to hold, postpone and modify elections. We find that 15 out of 60 scheduled national, regional and local elections were delayed in EU-27 over the first two years of the pandemic, with the length of the delay varying from seven weeks to nearly half a year. Most of the postponed events were local elections scheduled for the spring of 2020. In nationwide elections held amid the health crisis, voter turnout fell by 2.9 percentage points on average. We also find extensive differences among EU countries in terms of the use of special voting arrangements (SVAs). While 16 countries introduced new SVAs or expanded existing ones during the first two years of the pandemic, the modifications were, overall, limited in scope, attesting to the complexities of changing electoral legislation and practices over a short period of time. While the question of how to conduct elections amid the pandemic gave rise to heated debates in many EU countries, the controversies were most pronounced—and contributed to democratic backsliding—in settings where democracy had been eroding already before the health crisis.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a major threat to elections—and, by extension, to democracy—worldwide. Authorities in democratic countries have faced the difficult task of figuring out how to protect the health of citizens and officials while ensuring “the continuity of our democratic life” (James, 2020) which entails holding free and fair elections at periodic intervals. Organising elections in the context of the pandemic raises a number of questions: under what circumstances should elections be cancelled or postponed? If elections are held, how can risks arising from the pandemic be minimised while ensuring compliance with international standards and global norms governing the appropriate conduct of elections? Specifically, should special voting arrangements, such as early voting, postal, proxy or remote internet voting be introduced or expanded?

The chapter examines policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic in the realm of elections in 27 EU member states, focusing on two main choices—whether to hold or postpone elections and whether and how to modify the way elections are run. With regard to the latter question, we focus on special voting arrangements (SVAs). This term refers to voting modes other than conventional in-person voting at the polling station on election day. There are five main SVAs, including early voting (voting before election day), postal voting (voting by mail), proxy voting (ballot cast by one person on behalf of another), remote internet voting (casting an electronic vote over the internet) and the mobile ballot box, which means that members of the election administration bring the ballot box to a voter’s home or to the institution in which they reside in order to facilitate their vote. The analysis covers national as well as subnational elections scheduled to take place between February 2020 and February 2022 (i.e., within two years from the onset of the pandemic in Europe).

The chapter is structured in five parts. The first describes the challenges associated with the “health versus democracy” dilemma and outlines the basic choices available to policymakers (hold, postpone or modify elections). The second section focuses on different initial conditions, mapping the use of special voting arrangements in EU-27 before the health crisis. The third section examines the postponement of elections during the pandemic, highlighting patterns and describing associated debates and difficulties. The fourth section focuses on the introduction and expansion of special voting arrangements during the pandemic. The fifth section discusses the implementation of policy responses, as well as the impact of the pandemic and associated restrictions on electoral behaviour. The concluding section summarises lessons learned and identifies a number of promising avenues for further research.

This analysis shows that in the realm of election organisation, policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic varied extensively across 27 EU member states. Some countries postponed elections while others held them on schedule; some implemented extensive electoral reforms, introducing or expanding alternative voting modes, while in other countries, changes were limited to preventive health and social measures at polling stations. These differences in the national responses can be attributed to two main factors, including the timing of the elections relative to the onset of the pandemic as well as the extent to which SVAs were in place before the start of the health crisis. Our analysis highlights the importance of legal certainty and clarity in organising elections, as well as the difficulties and risks of changing electoral laws in haste. It shows that countries that had well-developed remote voting and early voting procedures in place were much better prepared for organising elections in the context of the pandemic than those that did not.

Pandemic Management in the Context of Elections

The Challenge

Preventing the transmission of an infectious disease requires the minimisation of social contacts; yet, representative democracy depends on elections which rely on social contact throughout the electoral cycle, from campaigns to voting and vote counting (Landman & Di Gennaro Splendore, 2020). Not surprisingly, the pandemic has had a highly disruptive effect on elections (International IDEA, 2022). This has given rise to concerns about the resilience of democracies, including the threat of democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarianism, especially in the context of a global decline of democracy, and in countries where democracy was eroding already before the pandemic (Rapeli & Saikkonen, 2020; Guasti, 2020; Repucci & Slipowitz, 2021).

From the perspective of disease transmission, elections are a type of public event characterised by the congregation of large numbers of people in a confined space. Going to the polling station to cast a vote has the potential to increase both infection rates and mortality from the coronavirus, especially among high-risk individuals including the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions (Bertoli et al., 2020; Santana et al., 2020). Holding large-scale in-person elections has been shown to cause a viral spread of COVID-19 (Palguta et al., 2022) and significantly increases death counts (Bertoli et al., 2020). The risks are not limited to election day: participation in assemblies, rallies and other campaign events may equally contribute to the spread of the virus (Bach et al., 2021; Cipullo & Le Moglie, 2021). In addition to voters, political candidates, election administrators, poll workers, and observers are also at risk, notably because election organisation typically entails meetings attended by large numbers of people (e.g., poll worker training, vote counting, etc.). In sum, among public events, elections are uniquely risky in terms of the spread of the coronavirus, as they entail mobility and social contacts on a massive scale, as voting age citizens flock to polling stations on election day.

Despite the risks they entail, elections—in contrast to many other types of events—cannot be easily suspended, postponed or re-organised. Regular, periodic elections are a defining characteristic of democracy, enabling citizens to select leaders and to hold them accountable, serving as forums for the discussion of public issues, and reinforcing the stability and legitimacy of a political system and the political community. In democratic countries, elections are constitutionally mandated and extensively legally regulated. Furthermore, the conduct of elections is governed by a wide set of international standards and global norms. Electoral integrity depends on compliance with laws, norms and procedures associated with the appropriate conduct of elections. Thus, postponing or modifying elections has the potential to produce “legal quagmires” (Ellena, 2020) and undermine regime legitimacy and stability.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the authorities in democratic countries faced two key choices concerning elections—whether to hold elections on schedule or to postpone them, and whether and how to modify the way elections are run. Both questions fall under the broader rubric of the practice of democracy during emergency situations (caused by natural or man-made hazards). There is a limited but growing literature focusing on the question of when and under what circumstances the postponement of elections can be regarded as justified. Distinguishing among various reasons and motivations for delaying elections (such as humanitarian reasons, political crisis, regime transition, death of a candidate, authoritarian power grab, and technical reasons), James and Alihodzic (2020, 345) highlight the postponement paradox which stems from the fact that postponing elections breaks institutional certainty, which, in turn, “may lead to partisan scrobbling which could trigger democratic breakdown and undermine trust in the system,” especially in presidential systems and in countries with low levels of political trust.

All in all, there is no universally applicable formula for deciding whether elections should be held on schedule or postponed. Decision-makers need to assess the magnitude of risks, consider relevant constitutional, legal and institutional constraints and opportunities, and evaluate the effect of holding or delaying the contests on electoral integrity, including on the prospect of realising core democratic principles such as deliberation, participation, fair contestation, quality of electoral management and the institutionalisation of rules (James & Alihodzic, 2020, 345). Specifically, it is important to consider the implications for turnout as well as for the representation of different social groups, as well as the prospect that postponement—or holding elections in the context of an emergency—could hamper political competition, advantage political incumbents or enable an autocratic consolidation of power (Quarcoo, 2020).

Pandemic-related modifications of the way elections are run fall into two main categories. First, authorities and election administrators can introduce various health safeguarding measures without providing alternatives to the conventional voting mode: casting a paper ballot at the polling station in person. There is a wide variety of measures at multiple levels that can be implemented to make polling safer in the context of the coronavirus outbreak, such as sanitising polling stations, enforcing social distancing measures, mask-wearing and temperature screening, opening more polling stations, extending the voting period or opening hours to reduce crowding, training poll workers, expanding interinstitutional cooperation, including between election management bodies and national COVID-19 task forces (e.g., Birch et al., 2020; James, 2021).

The second category of modifications pertains to introducing or expanding special voting arrangements—i.e., arrangements that allow voters to exercise their right to vote by means other than casting a ballot in person at their respective polling station on election day. There is a lively debate in the literature about expanding SVAs in the context of the pandemic (Krimmer et al., 2021; Asplund et al., 2021). Most of this discussion focuses on five kinds of SVAs, including early voting, postal voting, proxy voting, remote internet voting and the mobile ballot box. These alternative voting modes have the potential to reduce the transmission of the virus because they reduce or eliminate social contacts, enable those infected with the coronavirus or required to self-isolate to exercise their right to vote, or help spread out the vote over an extended period, making polling stations less crowded and hence, safer.

While the introduction or extension of SVAs can appear as an appealing solution to the problem of managing elections during the pandemic, changing electoral legislation, procedures and practices can be a complicated, controversial and time-consuming process. SVAs pose new challenges in terms of electoral integrity: for instance, secrecy of the ballot could be compromised in the context of postal or remote internet voting (e.g., Vollan, 2006; Koitmäe et al., 2021). Any change in voting modes is susceptible to politicisation and can trigger partisan disputes with far-reaching consequences, as exemplified by the conflict surrounding the expansion of postal voting in the 2020 United States presidential election (Clinton et al., 2020).

The subsequent sections of this chapter analyse national-level policy responses to COVID-19 in the realm of election management in EU-27, focusing on choices regarding holding or postponing elections, as well as the introduction and expansion of SVAs. In order to understand the context for these choices, however, it is important to map the availability of SVAs before the onset of the pandemic.

Different Initial Conditions

There are vast differences among European countries in terms of how voting is organised. In some countries, the only way that citizens can exercise their right to vote is by going to the polling station on election day. In other countries, voters can mail in their ballots, vote by proxy, vote ahead of election day, order a mobile ballot box to their place of residence or cast a vote over the internet. Countries where SVAs were widely available already before the pandemic were better positioned to reduce health risks associated with voting during the pandemic. Table 4.1 summarises the availability of special voting arrangements in 27 EU member states before the onset of the health crisis.

Table 4.1 Special voting arrangements in EU-27 before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

Early voting was relatively uncommon in EU member states before the health crisis. Only six countries, most of them Nordic or Baltic (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Portugal, Sweden) offered the option of voting ahead of election day to all voters. Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia provided this option to some groups of voters (e.g., those out of the country on election day). The length of the early voting period varied from three days in Latvia and Slovenia to about a week in Estonia and Finland to several weeks in Denmark. In the majority of EU countries, voters could vote only on election day.

Provisions for postal voting varied extensively across the EU. In Germany and Luxembourg, any voter could apply for postal ballot documents without providing a reason. Postal voting is widespread in Germany: in the federal elections of 2017, 29% of votes cast were postal votes (Bermingham, 2020). Prior to the pandemic, 16 EU countries did not provide any form of postal voting, while 9 countries offered this option to selected groups of voters, typically those absent on election day as well as ill or disabled voters.

Before the pandemic, proxy voting—one voter casting a vote for another—was allowed in five countries: Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Proxy voting is typically available only for specific groups of voters (e.g., elderly people, those who are ill or disabled, incarcerated or residing abroad). In most cases, voting by proxy must be requested ahead of election day.

Remote internet voting—a system where the voter casts an electronic ballot from any internet-enabled computer in the world—is rare. Estonia remains the only country in the world to provide all voters in all elections the option to cast an electronic ballot remotely. Introduced in 2005, internet voting is widely trusted by the Estonian voters. Usage rates have grown rapidly: in the 2019 general and European elections, nearly a half of all votes cast were electronic votes (Ehin et al., 2022). France, the only other EU country to offer online voting, does so on a much more limited scale: internet voting is available only to voters living abroad, and only in parliamentary elections.

The mobile ballot box, brought by election administrators to the voter’s home or to the institution in which they reside, is the most common SVA, having been available in 17 EU countries before the pandemic. The option is reserved only for voters who are not capable of going to the polling station because of age, physical disability or health reasons. Similar to proxy voting, the mobile ballot box must be requested in advance.

In sum, this brief overview of SVAs in the EU before the pandemic reveals that the country with the most flexible voting arrangements was Estonia, which offered four out of five special voting arrangements, two of which (early voting and remote internet voting) were available to all voters. The availability of alternative arrangements has transformed the act of voting in Estonia. Already before the onset of the pandemic, in 2019, nearly half of all votes were electronic votes cast over the internet, and the share of early voters (which includes those who cast their vote online) exceeded 60% (Ehin et al., 2022). Other countries offering a variety of special voting arrangements included Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Slovenia (three out of five SVAs available in each), although in most cases the alternative voting options were not available to all voters. On the other end of the scale, Cyprus and Greece were the only countries in the EU that did not provide any special voting arrangements before the pandemic.

Postponement of Elections

Of the 60 national, regional and local elections scheduled to be held in EU member states between February 2020 and February 2022, 45 were held on schedule and 15 (25%) were postponed. Table 4.2 provides a list of elections that were postponed in EU-27 within two years of the onset of the pandemic. Overall, the decision to hold or postpone elections is influenced by a number of considerations, including the severity of the public health situation and the magnitude of health risk; the phase of the crisis; constitutional and legal provisions; the type and importance of the elections concerned; the nature of the broader policy response to the pandemic, including whether a state of emergency had been declared or not; as well as considerations related to turnout, contestation, campaigning and the quality of electoral management. As evident from Table 4.2, many of the postponed elections in EU-27 during the first two years of the pandemic were subnational contests (with Polish presidential elections of 2020 as a notable exception). Out of 15 postponed elections, ten were local, four were regional and one was a national election. Also, the postponement of elections was more likely in the early phase of the pandemic (i.e., in 2020 as opposed to 2021 or 2022) when there was more uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus and when countries were struggling to devise a response to the new threat. The number of days by which an election was postponed varied from 49 days in the Polish presidential elections of 2020 to 182 in the Slovakian 2020 elections for local self-governing bodies. Five of the countries in which an election was postponed (Czechia, Finland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain) had declared a state of emergency at some point during the first phase of the pandemic (i.e., between February and June 2020).

Table 4.2 Elections postponed due to the pandemic in EU-27 (February 2020 to February 2022)

The constitutional and legal constraints on the decision to hold or postpone elections deserve special emphasis. The Portuguese presidential election of 2021 serves as an example of constitutional provisions constraining the policy response. The election was held on schedule on 24 January 2021, despite that fact that a full lockdown had been enforced on 15 January due to a rapidly rising number of COVID-19 cases. Postponing the election was not an option because extending the president’s mandate beyond five years would have required a constitutional amendment—which, in turn, would have been extraconstitutional if initiated during a state of emergency (Luís, 2021). Examples of legal complexities abound. In France, the decision to delay the second round of the 2020 local elections (see Table 4.2) led to the adoption of a new law to extend the term of 35,000 incumbent mayors (Quarcoo, 2020).

Introduction and Expansion of Special Voting Arrangements

Table 4.3 provides an overview of the introduction and expansion of SVAs in the context of national elections in EU-27 during the pandemic. According to our data, ten EU countries introduced or expanded alternative voting modes since February 2020. The introduction or increased availability of the mobile ballot box was the most popular pandemic-era modification of the voting process, implemented in seven countries. Three countries that did not have postal voting before 2020 introduced it in the context of the pandemic (the Netherlands, Poland, Romania) and one expanded this voting arrangement (Lithuania). Proxy voting was introduced in Croatia and expanded in Poland. Early voting was introduced in the Netherlands and expanded in Lithuania and Portugal. In Lithuania, early voting was facilitated by drive-by voting: voters who were self-isolating could submit completed ballot papers at a drive-in polling station prior to election day (Asplund et al., 2021). While we do not have systematic data on the use of SVAs in local and regional elections, there are reports on dramatic pandemic-induced changes to voting modes in some specific contexts. For instance, in the March 2020 local election in Bavaria (Germany), in-person voting was cancelled altogether—the only way to vote was to mail in ballots (Wagner, 2020).

Table 4.3 Introduction and expansion of SVAs in EU-27 during the pandemic

While the pandemic triggered an expansion of alternative voting modes in Europe, the changes were, overall, fairly limited, and there is little evidence of policy convergence towards a single model or normative standard (see Fig. 4.1). As an example, only one of the 18 EU countries that did not practice early voting before February 2020 introduced it during the pandemic (the Netherlands)—even though early voting is regarded as the least controversial time-tested and low-tech SVA. In addition to early voting, the Netherlands also introduced postal voting and expanded proxy voting to COVID-19 patients. New SVAs were also introduced in Poland (postal voting), Romania (postal voting for voters abroad), Croatia (proxy voting) and Cyprus (mobile ballot box). In other cases, existing SVAs were expanded, most commonly by making them available to COVID-19 patients. The reasons for a high degree of institutional continuity and inertia are understandable: elections are a highly regulated event, and changing electoral legislation and practices is a complicated and time-consuming process. Making last-minute changes to electoral legislation and operations has the potential to wreak organisational havoc and foment political controversy which could suppress turnout or undermine the legitimacy of elections. More sophisticated solutions, such as remote internet voting, cannot be introduced on short notice because they require technology development and testing, as well as extensive changes in electoral legislation and procedures (see Ehin et al., 2022).

Fig. 4.1

The use of SVAs before and after the onset of the pandemic in EU-27. Source: International IDEA. Notes: Entries indicate the number of countries. Only national-level elections included. The list may be inexhaustive

Implementation and Impact

During times of crisis, the way decisions are made and communicated is often as important as the content of these decisions. Norms governing the conduct of elections emphasise the importance of institutional stability and clarity of rules. The Council of Europe has recommended that electoral rules should not be changed less than one year before an election. It was not always possible to abide by this rule in the context of the pandemic, especially when elections fell into an early phase of the health crisis. In some countries, the question of how to proceed with elections in the context of COVID-19 caused extreme political controversy. This was the case in Poland, where the government’s plan to hold the 10 May 2020, presidential election as scheduled, while changing electoral rules to allow the vote to take place exclusively by post, was criticised by a variety of actors. Less than two weeks before the scheduled election day, nine former Polish prime ministers and presidents urged voters to boycott the election, arguing that postal voting could be unconstitutional and does not guarantee voter confidentiality (Reuters, 2020). Following a series of conflicting messages from key political actors, including the ruling party, the parliament and the national electoral committee, the decision to postpone elections was finally taken only a few days before election day. The Polish case illustrates the dangers of proceeding with hurried, poorly conceived solutions of questionable legality that do not enjoy broad-based political support (Vashchanka, 2020).

The impact of the decision to hold or delay elections, and of various electoral amendments, can be assessed from different perspectives, including public health, legality and democratic norms and ideals. The literature about the effects of the pandemic on elections has been particularly concerned with voter turnout as “a crucial factor underpinning the legitimacy of an election, providing electoral mandates to leaders, and as a barometer for the health of democracy in general” (Landman & Di Gennaro Splendore, 2020, 1062). There are various ways in which turnout could be affected in the context of the pandemic. Voters could abstain because they fear the virus (Santana et al., 2020). Alternatively, voters could stay home because of restrictions, lockdowns, insufficient information about voting modalities in the context of COVID-19 or low trust resulting from poor election management in the context of the crisis. Studies examining the effect of the pandemic on turnout have shown that turnout decline was more pronounced in countries and areas with higher infection and mortality rates, as well as areas that are densely populated and have a high share of the elderly (Santana et al., 2020; Picchio & Santolini, 2022; Noury et al., 2021). Furthermore, the health crisis has accentuated patterns of social inequalities in political representation, as the disadvantaged have been more likely to abstain from voting (Haute et al., 2021).

Figure 4.2 graphs all nationwide elections held in EU-27 during the first two years of the pandemic on a plane defined by two axes, including turnout in presidential, parliamentary and nationwide regional/local elections held since the onset of COVID-19, as well as turnout in the most recent comparable election held before the pandemic. All cases located above the line of equality had higher turnout levels during the pandemic than before its outbreak, while the dots falling under the line represent elections where turnout declined compared to the most recent comparable pre-pandemic election. As evident from the graph, voter turnout declined in 18 cases and increased in 9 cases. For all the elections included in the analysis, the average drop in turnout during the health crisis was 2.7 percentage points. The largest decrease occurred in the French local elections of 2020, the Bulgarian presidential elections of 2021 and the Latvian local elections of 2021 where turnout was more than 15 percentage points lower compared to previous similar elections. In contrast, turnout in the Polish presidential elections of 2020 increased by more than 10 percentage points compared to those held five years prior. There does not appear to be a clear correlation between turnout change and the phase of the pandemic, or between turnout change and whether an election was held as scheduled or postponed. However, in almost all elections that did not suffer from declining turnout levels amid the pandemic, SVAs had either been expanded or added.

Fig. 4.2

Voter turnout in nationwide elections held during and before the pandemic. Source: International IDEA and Council of Europe. Notes: Only nationwide elections included. Circles represent parliamentary elections; squares stand for presidential and triangles for nationwide local or regional elections

Besides impacting turnout, the pandemic and the associated restrictions also have consequences for the electoral performance of parties and candidates. There is growing evidence that lockdowns and harsh restrictive measures increase, at least in the short run, electoral support for political incumbents (Bol et al., 2020; Leininger & Schaub, 2020; Giommoni & Loumeau, 2022). In healthy democracies, rallying around current leaders and institutions during a major crisis can be a positive, unifying phenomenon, especially if accompanied by improved trust in government and increased satisfaction with democracy (Bol et al., 2020). However, in polities characterised by democratic backsliding, lockdowns and restrictions appear to have contributed to the concentration of power in the hands of the dominant parties, while further depriving the opposition of a level playing field (Guasti, 2020).

Conclusion

Holding elections in the context of a pandemic entails a plethora of challenges revolving around the dilemma of “health versus democracy.” These challenges were especially daunting for countries where elections were scheduled to take place shortly after the onset of the health crisis, in the first half of 2020. Proceeding with elections “as usual” could have contributed to the transmission of the virus and entailed the risk of low turnout and breaches of electoral integrity. Postponing elections or expanding special voting modes meant navigating constitutional and legal constraints, and conflicted with the norm of institutional stability and legal certainty. A key lesson from pandemic-induced electoral reforms is that major electoral changes cannot be prepared in haste, even in crisis context. Last-minute changes have the potential to wreak organisational and political havoc, and should be avoided. Legal clarity is of paramount importance, and any violations of the law have the potential to undermine the legitimacy of elections, and thus, of democratic governance.

Our analysis suggests that some EU countries were much better prepared to adapt elections to pandemic conditions than others. Countries with well-developed remote voting procedures, as well as those where the legal framework provides for early voting, could proceed with comparatively minor revisions to existing laws and protocols. In settings where voters were already familiar with special voting arrangements, the legality and trustworthiness of such options were much less likely to be contested, and the risk that pandemic-related modifications undermine trust in elections or reduce turnout, was significantly lower. In contrast, countries where the only way to exercise the right to vote was to cast a paper ballot at the polling station, the effect of the pandemic and associated restrictions was much more disruptive and proposals to postpone elections or introduce new voting modes were more likely to raise constitutional, legal and political controversy.

This analysis points to a number of promising avenues for further research. Much is to be gained from a careful comparative analysis of electoral laws from the perspective of crisis readiness. More research is needed on the postponement of elections, including the question of when delays are justified. The pandemic has revealed the need for comparative research on special voting arrangements, including the development of technologies, procedures and legal provisions for remote internet voting. While the prevalent attitude towards internet voting has been highly cautious, this may well change in the future as a result of technological advances, better protocols, and increased demand for location-independent voting services. There is also a need to better understand the politics of electoral reform, including the successes and failures of political consensus-building. Future research should also cast additional light on the impact of the pandemic, as well as diverse policy responses to the pandemic, on voting behaviour, including turnout and electoral support for various political actors. Finally, given the central importance of elections in representative democracies, there is a need for evidence on how to maintain public trust in elections during crises, and how to ensure broad-based acceptance of the results of free and fair elections.