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Internet Penetration: A Way to Strengthening Electoral Integrity

Democracy
Elections
Internet
Daniel Stockemer
University of Ottawa
Daniel Stockemer
University of Ottawa

Abstract

In a functioning democracy, the integrity of elections guarantees high citizens’ trust in the democratic system; in a new or fledgling democracy fair and transparent elections help consolidate the regime. In this article, I aim at emphasizing the Internet’s potential to improve the fairness and objectivity of elections. Through a multi-variate regression analysis of more than 80 countries across the globe, I establish that countries with higher Internet penetration rates generally enjoy fairer and more transparent elections regardless of the regime type. More practically, this results strongly entertains the possibility that the Internet improves access to political news, accommodates pluralistic sources of information, and produces platforms for political discourse. More theoretical, the article introduces an additional variable aimed at explaining variation in the fairness of the electoral process; a factor, which should be included in future analyses.