Electoral integrity resilience: Protecting elections during global risks, crises, and emergencies

Emergency situations caused by natural and technological hazards have often been thought to pose a major threat to democratic practices. This article introduces the concept of electoral integrity resilience as the configuration of actors, resources and properties which enable societies to adapt to an external shock which could damage electoral integrity. The COVID-19 pandemic was a critical case which was thought to pose as a major threat to election quality and democracy worldwide. Although there have been many country-specific studies of the effects of the pandemic, cross-national analysis has been limited due to the unavailability of data. The article uses a new original dataset to identify the properties of polities which had the greatest electoral integrity resilience to the pandemic. The findings point to the importance of overall democratic quality, but also EMB capacity and the availability of multiple methods of voting as key aspects of electoral integrity resilience. These are proposed as key components for investment if countries want to build their electoral integrity resilience ahead of forthcoming crises and emergencies. The article has important lessons for the study and praxis of how future national and global risks can be prepared for – and the construction of resilient institutions.