Details

Date: 7 July 2012
Location: IPSA World Congress, Madrid, Spain
Organizer: Electoral Integrity Project

Conference Theme

The workshop focused on the challenges of ‘electoral integrity’, understood as a complex and multidimensional concept which reflects internationally-agreed standards for the conduct of these contests. A range of well-known international experts, practitioners and scholars presented their research in six panels at the workshop, and the meeting attracted over 60 participants.

Lack of electoral integrity is a major challenge facing the world. This includes flaws in the conduct of elections, raising issues of transparency, accountability, accuracy and ethical standards. Problems of integrity can influence all stages of the electoral process from franchise restrictions and voter registration procedures, boundary delimitation for electoral districts, party/candidate registration, campaigns, media, financing, voting, and vote counting, to the final declaration and outcome of the results.

A growing body of research, by scholars and policy analysts, is starting to conceptualize the notion of ethical standards of electoral integrity, to examine techniques commonly used to manipulate electoral processes, and to analyze the consequences for citizens, legitimacy, political stability, democratization and the quality of democracy.