Ever since the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) was founded three decades ago, elections have been a central part of our work and identity. But never have elections globally faced such a complex and daunting set of challenges as today—from disinformation campaigns to disruption from extreme climate events to outright denial of electoral results, to name just a few.
The cumulative impact of all these challenges to elections cannot be overstated. Credible, high-integrity elections play a foundational role in democracy, not least because they offer the best opportunity to stem the tide of democratic deterioration. In case after case, from Guatemala to Poland to Zambia, it is through elections that democratic forces have changed the trajectory of receding democracies. Moreover, elections are one of the most visible and public events in democratic life; if people lose trust in elections, it is very hard to retain or regain their trust in other aspects of democracy. Democracy is much more than elections, but there can be no democracy without elections.
With this in mind, and as countries with half the world’s population went to the polls in 2024, International IDEA redoubled its focus on elections as pillars of democracy. Through this global campaign last year, we helped develop the capacity of election authorities to manage risk, convened dialogues to exchange lessons learned and practices among our Member States, leveraged our institutional voice through media and advocacy, and generated and disseminated knowledge about the trends we were seeing and the lessons to be drawn.
This report is a culminating piece of that effort to ensure that lessons from the super cycle are both learned and used. As a multimethod and multidisciplinary analysis, it draws on knowledge from practitioners and academics alike, embodying the ‘think and do’ nature of our Institute. It is the product of collaboration with peers in the Electoral Integrity Project, reflecting the importance of partnerships in addressing the myriad overlapping challenges to electoral integrity. And in addition to providing a definitive summary of key themes and trends emerging from the ‘Year of Elections’, it offers policy recommendations for election management bodies and other authorities to strengthen elections for an uncertain future. In particular, the report highlights the importance of contextual conditions for elections, inter-agency and whole-of-society coordination, and the use of foresight to imagine possibilities and plan accordingly.
Building on International IDEA’s strong record of leadership in defining and developing the field of electoral assistance, I am confident that this report will become a key reference for the next generation of election managers, policymakers and stakeholders seeking to strengthen electoral integrity worldwide.
Dr Kevin Casas-ZamoraSecretary-General, International IDEA
The 2024 super-cycle year of elections sparked unprecedented interest in electoral processes. Indeed, the sheer number of elections and voters was impressive. An estimated 1.6 billion cast ballots in 74 national elections throughout the world. The year saw many well-run elections worldwide, bringing meaningful political change for many citizens. These elections were moments of citizen empowerment—opportunities for voters to express themselves, removing their representatives from office or renewing their mandates for another electoral cycle. However, there were also cases of electoral backsliding, where the quality of elections was much lower than in previous years.
Data from the Electoral Integrity Project shows that, across countries, the greatest problems in the 2024 elections were related to the media and the role of money in elections. These problems are not entirely new. The media landscape should be free, open and fair so that citizens can make informed choices at the ballot box. However, there have always been biases in news and media coverage. Likewise, regulating campaigns so that the candidates and parties with the greatest financial resources do not have a significant advantage has been a long-term challenge.
The interest in the super-cycle year marked a profound and growing concern—a sense that we are at a historical juncture where we must revisit and reassess the strength of our democratic culture and institutions. Many of the challenges that emerged in this super cycle will shape the global democratic landscape in 2025 and beyond.
Technological and political developments are combining to create problems of a new magnitude. Major platforms have taken a deregulated—or actively partisan—approach to content management. Facebook and Instagram have removed fact-checkers from their platforms. The owner of X has actively sought to intervene in overseas elections. The aggressive use of disinformation in the online information space, the deregulated approach of social media platforms and the challenges involved in tracing financial flows worldwide make it difficult to ensure a level playing field for election candidates.
For the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP), the diversity of the 2024 election slate provided an opportune entry point to revisit assumptions and track evolving challenges in electoral management and policy. In this publication, a team of academics and experts tied to the EIP and International IDEA reviews the 2024 elections through lenses ranging from the administration of elections, the context in which they were held and the rising interest in electoral trust. Each chapter is underpinned by data from a series of key International IDEA and EIP trackers and data sets: the Global Elections Super Cycle, the Perceptions of Electoral Integrity data set, the Global Election Monitor, the Global State of Democracy and its Democracy Tracker, the Election Emergency and Crisis Monitor, the Electoral Management Survey as well as specialized data sets.
This review illustrates profound changes underway in how elections are conducted and the increasingly complex contexts in which elections are held. Many of these challenges directly affected the work of electoral management bodies (EMBs), as they had to navigate inclement weather, a radically changed information environment, the politicization of their mandate and aggression towards their officials, alongside their already complex portfolios. Institutions, regulatory frameworks and global norms established in previous generations to ensure a level playing field are being sorely tested by the egregious use of money in politics and the manipulation of social media algorithms to influence elections, exacerbated by the explicit willingness of domestic, foreign and non-state actors to engage in such activities.
This report, divided into eight main chapters, highlights the following findings:
For those who design and manage electoral processes, the lessons learned from 2024 highlight the following priorities:
In 2024, 1.6 billion people across 74 national elections cast ballots, with an average voter turnout of 61 per cent (International IDEA n.d.a). In late 2023, Time declared that ‘2024 is not just an election year. It’s perhaps the election year’ (Ewe 2023). In the end, even more elections were held in 2024 than expected, as governments fell, dissolved their parliaments and called snap elections.
While elections are always significant and should be viewed as a process which includes events before, during and after the polls open on election day, the sheer number of national elections taking place and the number of voters casting ballots in a relatively short time frame made 2024 a landmark year for elections. The so-called electoral super cycle resulted from the convergence—which occurs every 20 years—of national electoral calendars that require elections to take place every 4 or 5 years.
These elections were also significant because they took place at a time of global concern about democratic backsliding. International IDEA (2024: 3, 13) reported that 82 countries saw a decline in at least one of their indicators of democratic performance compared with five years prior and that one in three voters were living in a country where the quality of elections had declined.
This report examines the elections that took place in 2024 to identify lessons and both established and emerging trends applicable to the broad task of protecting and strengthening electoral processes. This is a pivotal time, with multiple threats to electoral integrity around the world. The report maps out some of these challenges and encourages global conversations about them.
The remainder of this Introduction defines some key terms relating to electoral integrity and democratic backsliding, maps the overall quality of elections in 2024 against longer-term trends and introduces electoral integrity challenges to be further explored.