Threats to Compliance with Legal Principles of Elections in a Globalized Digital Society

The article provides a systematic analysis of threats to compliance with legal principles of elections in a globalized digital society.

It is argued that elections are one of the main elements of democracy, through which individuals and political parties gain power, the international legal system has formed established legal principles of the electoral process that determine its acceptability, legality and legitimization of results. The globalized digital society creates additional opportunities for the exercise of electoral rights, along with threats to the established legal principles of elections.

Free and fair elections are the basis of the democratic process. Electoral abuses undermine the legitimacy of the electoral process, the general acceptability of election results and challenge the democratization process. These principles call for expanding access to voting and democracy and removing barriers to participation, which can be achieved by harnessing the potential benefits of a globalized digital society.

The author argues that disinformation poses a threat to democracy and elections, with far-reaching consequences for human rights and democratic norms around the world, threatening freedom of expression, the right to privacy and the right to democratic participation, as well as jeopardizing a range of economic, social and cultural rights, reducing broader indicators of the quality of democracy, undermining citizens’ trust in democratic institutions.

Disinformation during elections undermines trust in democratic institutions by fueling false negative beliefs about the integrity of elections, or by supporting dictators by creating false positive perceptions of them. It argues that a comprehensive strategy is needed to protect electoral rights and electoral procedures from the impact of the digital society with its manifestations of cyberattacks and disinformation.

The positions of the scientific community on the appropriateness of using electronic voting tools are considered. The thesis is proved that, in general, while identifying significant positives for the state and members of society when introducing new technologies, from the point of view of political and legal practice, one should be cautious about the active introduction of electronic elections into the implementation sphere.