Understanding Electoral Integrity for Truly Just Elections
In recent years, discussing “electoral integrity” has become crucial to understanding whether elections are genuinely fair, free, and authentic. It’s not enough to have appropriate norms or for an electoral process to appear legal in a democracy. The true test lies in whether, in practice, the spirit of the law is respected and if citizens’ will is genuinely acknowledged.
Evaluating Political Actors’ Practices
Through the concept of integrity, one can assess if political actors employ seemingly legal strategies that ultimately betray democratic values. The electoral jurisprudence has seen examples of such questionable practices:
- * In the so-called “election tourism,” a party mobilized large numbers of people to change their electoral domicile, thereby attempting to influence local election outcomes. The Federal Judicial Power Electoral Tribunal ruled that this constituted an attempt to alter the integrity of the electoral register and created unfairness in the electoral contest (SUP-RAP-15/2018).
- * In another case, a public servant was penalized for distributing food packages during the campaign from a state secretariat, which compromised electoral integrity (SUP-REP-675/2018).
- * There was an instance where campaign cards were used as electoral propaganda. Although the cards weren’t illegal, their use as a clientelistic mechanism was deemed to violate electoral equity (SUP-REC-638/2018).
The Inter-American Court’s Perspective on Electoral Integrity
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has emphasized the concept of electoral integrity in its rulings, particularly in presidential elections. In the case Capriles vs. Venezuela (2024), the Court analyzed the 2013 presidential election, where Nicolás Maduro won against Henrique Capriles. The Court established that states must ensure at least five minimum aspects:
- Transparency throughout the electoral process, especially in campaign financing and vote counting;
- Equitable access to all media for candidates’ proposals to be known;
- Preventing the abusive use of state apparatus in favor of any candidacy or political group;
- Guaranteeing the impartiality, independence, and transparency of electoral authorities;
- Providing effective judicial and administrative resources against irregularities.
In the Gadea Mantilla vs. Nicaragua (2024) case, the Inter-American Court highlighted the responsibility for the abusive use of state apparatus to favor President Daniel Ortega’s re-election, violating Fabio Gadea Mantilla’s political-electoral rights as a presidential candidate in 2011. This created an illusion of legality for an election that, in reality, undermined the integrity of the process. Such actions eroded trust in the law and the electoral process itself.
Electoral Integrity: The Cornerstone of a Functioning Democracy
Electoral integrity is the pathway for democracy to function properly. It goes beyond preventing fraud or trickery; it means respecting democratic principles, promoting equity, equality, certainty, and transparency in the electoral contest. Today, more than ever, electoral integrity ensures that it is the electorate who freely decide a nation’s course.
