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On March 6, 2024, the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies (ICPS) held a webinar with over 200 attendees from the global electoral community. The event for the Electoral Stakeholders’ Network, focussed on a crucial aspect of democratic processes: “Training Electoral Staff to Improve Resilience and Promote Integrity.” This webinar brought together over 250 participants, including election officials, policy makers, and academics, to delve into the ways in which training can fortify electoral systems against challenges and ensure a high degree of integrity.

The ICPS Electoral Stakeholders' Network organised a virtual roundtable: ‘Innovation in Electoral Technology: How will technology be utilised in the 2030s?’ contributing to an understanding of the future of technology in the electoral space. Delegates from all over the world participated in the event, including four eminent speakers.

The events of the last year have brought growing pressure for electoral stakeholders to embrace new technologies to address a number of the challenges that have emerged following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. For many electoral bodies, the last year has acted as a catalyst for many changes that were already underway, but for others it has led to a significant shift in thinking. In this timely moment, it is important to explore the implications of incorporating existing and emerging technologies into our electoral processes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised many election organizing issues around the world. From 21 February 2020 until 21 February 2022 at least 80 countries and territories across the globe decided to postpone national and subnational elections due to COVID-19. However, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, some countries held elections as usual.

The voter registration process is crucial to enfranchising all eligible voters, and is the building bloc upon which a democracy realises the fundamental principle of "one person, one vote, one value”. With this in mind, it falls to electoral management bodies to ensure that the voter register is inclusive, accurate and comprehensive, and that its processes are transparent to all stakeholders. However, with the ongoing pandemic, electoral management bodies (EMBs) are presented with a new set of obstacles that make inclusive and extensive registration more difficult, and with restrictions in the use of physical spaces there is an increased risk of disenfranchising members of the electorate, and especially minority groups.

Across the globe, in-person voting at predetermined locations is how voters are accustomed to casting a ballot. However, the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic presents unique challenges for this well-established participatory norm. Administrative planning for in-person voting that is modified for social distancing to reduce the potential for disease transmission and responsive to variations in the types of buildings used for in-person voting has rapidly become a concern for state and local election administrations in the United States and Election Management Bodies (EMBs) around the world. In addition to identifying and implementing modifications to polling locations, election administrators also face the challenge of understanding how COVID-19 responsive polling location modifications can affect what voters experience when casting a ballot.

It is perhaps an understatement to now say that the the entire world has been seriously impacted by the outbreak and spread of Covid-19, and that the world of elections is no different. While thDarnolf, Senior Global Advisor, Electoral Operations and Administration, IFES; Simon Verdon, Chief Executive Officer, Democracy Counts; and Unwooe hope of being able to run an election clear of the pandemic. This hope is now fading as it appears that the pandemic will be around longer than many had first thought, and that running an election during a pandemic will be unavoidable for many democracies. It is with this in mind that the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies (ICPS) and the Association for World Electoral Bodies (A-WEB) decided to co-host a virtual roundtable last month on the topic of ‘Ways to Overcome the Challenges of COVID-19 in Election Management: From a Policy and Technological Perspective’. The roundtable was kindly hosted by Seung Ryeol Kim, Advisor to Secretary General, A-WEB, and included the following speakers: Damir Kontrec, Vice-President of the State Electoral Commission of the Republic of Croatia; Dr. Staffan Darnolf, Senior Global Advisor, Electoral Operations and Administration, IFES; Simon Verdon, Chief Executive Officer, Democracy Counts; and Unwoo Ha, Deputy Director, Legal Affairs Division, National Election Commission of the Republic of Korea.

Election cybersecurity or election security refers to the protection of elections and voting infrastructure from cyberattack or cyber threat – including the tampering with or infiltration of voting machines and equipment, election office networks and practices, and voter registration databases.

Global politics has been defined in 2020 by its attempt to deal with a deadly virus. This is no different for the work carried out by electoral management bodies (EMBs) across the globe, as they deal with the challenge of how to manage their respective elections in the middle of a pandemic. The ongoing public health crisis has impacted elections across the globe in a variety of ways. Not only has it led to the postponement of elections in over 70 countries , it has also resulted in lower turnout in elections that have continued throughout the pandemic. France’s municipal elections that were carried out between March and June, recorded a historically low turnout of 40%, compared with 63.5% in 2014. Elections in Mali, Iran, Australia and several US states, have similarly suffered with low turnouts and a high number of abstentions. This issue could be existential for many states. If the pandemic leads to low turnout in elections over the next year, then there is a serious risk that it would damage the legitimacy of the winning party and by extension the electoral democracy itself.