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1. When Are Elections Good Enough?

Author:
Chad Vickery, David Ennis, Katherine Ellena, and Alyssa Kaiser
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems
Abstract:
The high-profile annulment of the 2017 Kenyan presidential election surprised many election watchers in Africa and across the globe. All elections suffer from challenges and irregularities, to varying degrees of seriousness, including poll worker error, acts of God, and violence, without these challenges necessarily changing the outcome of the vote or leading to a full annulment. A decision to annul elections is one that should not be taken lightly as it can have serious consequences for democracy. Repeat elections impose unexpected costs on state budgets and candidates; the normal operation of legislatures and governments may be disrupted while a revote is organized; candidates may refuse to participate in the fresh elections, leading to a political crisis; and repeat elections may themselves be subject to irregularities. Most concerning, however, is the potential for bad actors to use annulment of results (under the guise of ensuring “secure elections” or as redress for “widespread irregularities”) as a tool to thwart the will of voters. This raises important questions: When are elections considered good enough? And what is needed to make a determination whether to validate or annul an election? The answer to these questions is not straightforward, and different jurisdictions have taken different approaches. In some contexts, there may be a readily quantifiable number of votes affected by one or more irregularities. In other cases, however, such as voter intimidation, cyberattacks, or electoral disinformation, determining the impact of an irregularity on an election will be difficult or impossible. With that difficulty in mind, it is critically important for jurisdictions to have clear and pre-determined rules governing when annulment is available as a remedy, both to ensure that annulment is available if needed, but also so that annulment is not misused to frustrate the will of the voters. A new International Foundation for Electoral Systems research paper outlines various legal approaches to election annulments, explores different grounds for annulment, and outlines procedural considerations for courts and adjudicators when determining whether to annul an election result, drawing on international principles and global jurisprudence.
Topic:
Elections, Voting, Election Interference, and Rigged Elections
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Case for Foreign Electoral Subversion

Author:
Cecile Fabre
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Most foreign policy is not implemented through war. Yet, with a few recent exceptions—like James Pattison’s 2018 monograph The Alternatives to War—political and moral philosophers have yet to explore all options between war and doing nothing.1 Here I consider one such option: subversive interference in a democracy’s nationwide elections. In that regard, the years 2016–2017 have proved rich in controversies. In France, Russian banks with close ties to the Kremlin provided cash loans to the National Front in the run-up to the 2017 presidential elections. In December 2017, the Australian premier announced a tightening of restrictions on foreign funding of political parties out of concern with alleged and undue Chinese influence on some Australian politicians. Last, but far from least, in the United States the Office of the Director of National Intelligence along with the CIA, FBI, and NSA all take the strong view, backed in part by social media data, that Russian authorities actively sought to undermine Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and to bolster Donald Trump’s.2 Interestingly, however, some of President Putin’s critics are vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy. To give but two examples, the United States has a long history of interfering in the institutions and elections of its Latin American neighbors and, indeed, at the height of the Cold War, of its European allies. More recently, many believe that, absent U.S.-driven assistance, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia would have lost the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election to Slobodan Milošević.3 Attempting to subvert the democratic elections of a putatively sovereign country is a time-honored way of bending the latter’s domestic and foreign policy to one’s will. However, it seems to elicit far more condemnation than war and, indeed, other forms of coercive diplomacy. Perhaps this is because, to many people, the rights of democratic participation have primacy over all other rights; or because most often electoral subversion takes place covertly. Either way, given how destructive those other modes of interference are, this is puzzling. I frame my inquiry as follows. I focus on the state-sponsored, nonviolent, nonkinetic subversion of nationwide elections (for short, subversion). Moreover, because I am interested in exploring whether there are any situations in which subversion may be justified, I consider cases in which subversion is used as a means to prevent or end large-scale human rights violations, though my argument also has implications for subversion as a tool of foreign policy in general. In addition, my aim is not to evaluate subversion as an alternative to war or, for that matter, to other measures, such as economic sanctions. Due to space constraints, I simply wish to show that, under certain conditions and subject to certain constraints, subversion is pro tanto justified. Whether it is justified all things considered—and, in particular, once one has taken into account other options—is another matter and one that I cannot settle here. Finally, although subversion affects election candidates, it above all undermines a citizen’s right to vote. Accordingly, in what follows I focus on the latter and not the former. Attempting to subvert the democratic elections of a putatively sovereign country is a time-honored way of bending the latter’s domestic and foreign policy to one’s will. However, it seems to elicit far more condemnation than war. Before I begin, let me outline the overall normative framework on which my arguments rely. I take it for granted that all individuals, wherever they reside in the world, have rights to the freedoms and the resources they need to lead a minimally flourishing life—in other words, human rights. Moreover, they hold those rights against all human beings and their respective governments. Put differently, on this cosmopolitan view, all of us, wherever we reside in the world, are under duties to all other individuals, wherever they reside, to respect their human rights. How precisely we discharge those duties partly depends on the institutional structures under which we live. Be that as it may, I am not under a stronger duty to respect my compatriots’ human rights—for example, not to be killed or to be given means of subsistence—than I am to respect those same rights of noncompatriots, and vice versa
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Sovereignty, Elections, and Election Interference
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Turnout and Voter Insecurity in the French Elections

Author:
Adrien Abecassis
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
One of the key questions in the current debate on the causes of the rise of populism is whether the economic harshness and distrust in traditional political parties increase or decrease election turnout. This question was debated in a recent roundtable discussion, organized by the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Global Populism, on the economic and cultural causes of populism’s prevalence. Would voters struck by economic shocks—those whose futures seemed to be vulnerable, and who have lost their sense of security about their own lives and that of their children’s—tend to vote to prevent this from happening? Or would their suffering cause them to retreat and withdraw from political elections? And indeed, the answer is not obvious: Luigi Guiso et al. found that economic security shocks significantly increased the likelihood of abstention, while David Autor et al. showed that economic shocks due to foreign trade competition raised—not lowered—voter turnout.
Topic:
Elections, Populism, Political Parties, and Election Interference
Political Geography:
Global Focus