Cambridge Conference on Electoral Democracy

Mauritius Regional Conference 24 - 25 April 2024

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Conference Programme

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The conference programme is available here.

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Summary of Discussions

 

Coinciding with the commemoration of the 65 years of the creation of the Electoral Commission of Mauritius, a regional conference for African Chief Electoral Commissioners was held at the La Paradis Beachcomber Golf Resort and Hotel, on 24 and 25th, April 2024. It was organised by the Cambridge Commonwealth Conference on Electoral Democracy, in partnership with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the Office of the Electoral Commissioner, Mauritius. The theme of the conference was Ensuring Credible Elections for Stable Democracy: Options for management of misleading and incorrect Information in electoral processes.

 

The conference emphasised the key role that electoral commissions and election management bodies (EMBs) play to ensure electoral integrity and deepen democracy, in spite of the enormous challenges they face from efforts by key stakeholders to literally “sink the ship”! Most African chief electoral commissions have demonstrated resilience and dogged effort to contend with the challenges they face, and participated in knowledge-sharing and experience sharing opportunities, which such conferences as this one provides. It was noted that the future of democracy in Africa may well lie in the stellar work that independent EMBs do. The CMEDT and MCSC reaffirmed its commitment to offer more knowledge sharing opportunities in the future, hopefully with other credible and equally committed partners such as IFES, and the EMBs such as the Office of the Electoral Commissioner of Mauritius.

 

Useful context to the conference discussions was provided by IFES, noting the general decline of democracy worldwide, the evolving new digital order dominated by technology companies, which offers not only remarkable opportunities for positive uses, including by electoral commissions, but also and especially great risks and challenges, relating to misinformation, disinformation and hate speeches, which now threaten and undermine electoral integrity, as well as stable  and sustainable democratic development. These risks and challenges are increasing daily due to increased and enhanced deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Given these,  serious discussions on how to address and mitigate these challenges are necessary, especially because around 100 electoral events are to take place globally in 2024, 25% of which would be in Africa. This conference is therefore a timely knowledge and experience sharing opportunity on how to contend with emerging risks and challenges, mitigate them, and improve/increase the integrity of elections.

 

Considerable efforts are being made globally to contend with the emerging/evolving risks and challenges, emanating from the use of digital technologies and social media platforms, especially as it pertains to the integrity of preparation and conduct of elections. There is general agreement that the single biggest risk to the democracy in the next two years may well be disinformation and misinformation spread through digital and social media. And there are efforts to counter and face the challenges.  In particular, an IFES initiative, together with technology companies, which led to the Bellagio meeting in 2023, the outcome of which is the “Voluntary Election Integrity Guidelines for Technology Companies”, which many  technology companies have already signed up to.  Outstanding matters relate to encouraging many more tech companies to sign, commit and partner with EMBs and other stakeholders to put the objectives of the guidelines to good use; and how to strengthen the capacity of EMBs to develop strategies and effective methodologies for mitigating the emerging threats and risks. 

 

Complementing the IFES initiative was the Association of African Election Authorities’ (AAEA) “Principles and Guidelines  for the use of Digital and Social media in Elections in Africa”, work on which was endorsed by the General Assembly of AAEA in November 2022, and which many EMBs are striving to domesticate and put to some use regarding how to mitigate effectively the use of social media and digital technologies to propagate misinformation, disinformation, fake news and hate speeches to undermine the integrity of elections and even cause violent conflicts, which undermine stable democratic development. Outstanding matters relating to this, include: how EMBs can/should build trust (which is hard to earn and easy to lose), protect and manage their reputation, and forge collaboration and partnerships, with technology companies and /or other stakeholders to, either through regulation and/or education  frontally confront the challenges and mitigate them.

 

Importantly, conference participants welcomed both the IFES “Voluntary Election Integrity Guidelines for Technology Companies” and the AAEA “Principles and Guidelines for the use of Digital and Social media in Elections in Africa”, and were keen to see both implemented by working individually and through sub-regional and regional organisations like SADC, AAEA, ECOWAS and the AU. 

 

Over two days discussions centred on the following sub-themes: Education or regulation?; Who are the Partners that can help? What should be the role of EMBs? Where do we go from here /  (What is to be Done?).

 

The discussions were rich, wide-ranging, expansive, and sometimes thought provoking. The pertinent perspectives, conclusions and recommendations can be summarised as follows:

1. Drawing from credible surveys, such as Afrobarometer reports, Africans still prefer electoral democracy to authoritarian/military rule. Given this, the primary task remains how to conduct elections with integrity and how to ensure delivery of good governance by elected public officials. Relatedly, recent research indicates that  African EMBs have not been totally negatively affected/impacted by democratic recession globally, and resurgence of authoritarianism and populism. The result is mixed and most EMBs still strive commendably to deliver elections with integrity, in spite of the strenuous effort by reckless politicians to undermine the integrity of elections and to deliver bad governance;

2. There is no doubt that use of digital and social media to propagate disinformation, misinformation, fake news, and hate speeches, poses a real and imminent danger to electoral integrity in particular and stable democratic development in general. All hands need to be on deck and serious efforts need to be made to counter and mitigate the perceived risks and challenges;

3. Regulation, education, partnerships and collaboration, used variously, and appropriately, can go a long way to mitigate emerging threats and risk posed by negative uses of digital and social media.

   • There are legitimate concerns about the thin line between regulation and censorship, for which reason many civil society groups, citizens and even the technology companies shy away from endorsing it, especially on matters such as content moderation and pulling down postings on social media platforms and chat groups. However, regulation remains a strong mitigating method against ethical and professional misconduct by individuals or institutions and organisations, both private and public. The EU Digital Services Act, is seen as a model, that can be used in many regional contexts to regulate the activities of technology companies, who quite often ignore sanctions within national jurisdictions. In Africa, regional efforts at the levels of SADC and ECOWAS, etc., or even AU may be desirable. Given this, it isn’t an either or situation: both regulation and education can, and should be, put to good use.;

   • EMBs need to pay considerable attention to use of education, both voter education and civic education, to address and mitigate the use of social media to mobilise/deploy misinformation, disinformation and hate speeches using digital and social media. The public needs to be educated well, using online resources to provide credible information, positively using social media, if possible with partnership and collaboration with, or assistance from, technology digital and social media companies. For this to be successful, EMBs also need to build trust and positively manage their reputation for truth, competence, professionalism, efficiency, as well as institutional and personal integrity. Traditional channels of formal and informal education should be employed in creative ways, be it in partnering with CSOs and CBOs to pride credible voter and civic education IECs, etc., or indeed, using formal schools, creating voter education clubs, etc., as INEC Nigeria and other EMBs are striving to do, or indeed, introducing/strengthening civic education on the curricular, etc. Clearly, consistency in communication, effective delivery are all necessary mitigation negative uses of social media that undermines electoral integrity. Indeed, EMBS need to pay attention to development and deployment of appropriate communication strategies; 

   • In pursuit of the objectives and effectiveness of both regulation and education, partnerships and collaborations are necessary and EMBs would have to pursue these seriously and appropriately. There must be recognition that fighting fake news requires a ‘whole of society’ and ‘whole of government’ approach. Everybody, potentially has a role to play. Sustained engagements based on trust and good reputation of credibility, with a range of stakeholders, would help greatly in speedily exchanging and sharing information to counter and mitigate disinformation, misinformation and hate speeches. Who are the partners?  These include the electorate, media, civil society groups, including professional associations, and political parties, even though some of these pursue their clearly defined agendas. In this regard, while reckless politicians engage ‘cash and carry’ “social media influencers” to inject negative messages on digital and social media, EMBs should expand the scope of their stakeholder engagements to identify and bring on board for collaboration credible “influencers”, who with good rapport and understanding, would speedily help to share and circulate credible information to counter and mitigate misinformation, disinformation and hate speeches.

   • EMBs need to look for additional resources, both from appropriations and leveraging partnerships to invest in digital/AI tools, infrastructure and expertise, to drive effective responses to these emerging challenges. While there is a lot of skepticism on forging a positive partnership between EMBs and technology companies, given the latter’s evident reluctance or deliberate pushback, EMBs must try harder to nurture such engagement and hopefully engender collaborations that can, at the minimum leverage resources for them to build competence and capacity to address, minimise and mitigate the damage caused undermining of electoral integrity using digital and social media platforms.

   • Most importantly,  EMBs need to strengthen competence, and capacity to prepare for, and conduct, elections efficiently and with integrity. In doing so, they must adhere to the values and principles of impartiality, non-partisanship, and creation of a level-playing field for all parties and contestants. They must routinely train and retrain staff, deploy resources appropriately and efficiently, be transparent and accountable, and constantly consult/engage all stakeholders. EMB must build trust, create and manage reputation for trust, integrity and professionalism. All these add considerable value to the task of tackling old and new, emerging, challenges in conducting elections with integrity.

   • In addition, 

     • EMBs must continue to intensify peer learning, knowledge and experience sharing, as well as enhance collaboration amongst themselves.

     • Explore with stakeholders the possibility of establishing “Codes of Conduct” on fake news, disinformation, missing formation and hate speeches.

     • Seek to domesticate and put to good use the AAEA  “Principles and Guidelines for the use of Digital and Social media in Elections in Africa”

     • Explore ways and means of tapping into, and putting to good use, the potential benefits derivable from the “Voluntary Election Integrity Guidelines for Technology Companies” 

 

Given the larger, global context of the rise of populist and authoritarian regimes, as a result of which scholars increasingly use phrases such as: “democratic recession”, “resurgence of authoritarianism”, “democratic reversal”, etc., (some are now even wondering aloud: “Is Democracy Dying”?); and the specific African context in which while many EMBs are trying hard to conduct elections with integrity, the elected officials are grossly failing to deliver good governance, leadership of EMBs may well begin to reexamine the perception of their roles as merely  akin to a “birth attendant”, only interested in a ‘safe delivery’ of elected officials , and not at all concerned about the outcome, in terms of governance.

 

In conclusion, as one of the participants aptly captured it, digital technology and the use of AI have brought a remarkable paradigm shift with remarkable consequences on electoral integrity and sustainability of democracy, especially in newly democratising countries of Africa. EMBs need to review how prepared they are to face the challenges posed by digital technology, and they need to evolve creative ways to strengthen their skills, competence and capacity to effectively tackle and address these challenges. They also need to forge partnerships, enhance collaboration, and strengthen stakeholder engagements towards the attainment of the overall objective of elections with integrity, in spite of the challenges. 

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