Electoral governance in Latin America during Covid19 pandemic: challenges and answers

In all countries, the pandemic has posed new challenges to electoral governance. Beyond their crucial roles related to electoral integrity, Electoral Management Boards (EMBs) have now to deal with health and political new risks. Beyond that, Latin American countries face additional challenges, as some solutions and alternatives to run elections during the pandemic are not available. Postal and online votes, for example, are not options in very heterogeneous countries, with unequal access to public services. Even if accessibility issues could be solved on time, voters and parties would maybe receive unexpected innovations with distrust. As most Latin American countries are still young democracies, compliance to electoral competition rules and governance is yet being built. This paper compares how Latin American EMBs answered the pandemic challenges and how institutional arrangements, political polarization, and recommendations from international organizations relate to that.