The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Argentine electoral integrity

MARÍA CELESTE RATTO; CAROLINA FRANCO HANTZSCH

Evento virtual

Conferencia; Electoral Integrity Project Annual Conference Challenges of Electoral Integrity Around the Globe; 2022

Electoral Integrity Project

TheCovid-19 pandemic added enormous difficulties to democracies of the worldaffecting its electoral integrity. Governments addressed enormous challengesduring COVID-19, such as learning to coexist in the new pandemic circumstances,and adapting a large part of rules and procedures to the health emergency.Democratic continuity has been one of these enormous challenges. Governmentshad to implement extreme measures to protect their populations, and at the sametime comply with the procedures that sustain these democratic agreements.Holding elections in the context of a pandemic was a test to institutionalconsolidation. In countries with a shorter democratic experience, such asArgentina, where recent history has shown episodes of political and economicinstability, holding elections in a pandemic was a huge challenge that couldeither have strengthened democratic arrangements or generated a backslide. Thiscase study describes the challenges faced by Argentina, its dilemmas and thesolutions implemented to hold the 2021 elections in the context of the Covid-19pandemic. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the understanding of theeffect that an extraordinary event as the Covid-19 pandemic had on theelectoral cycle and on the electoral integrity of Argentina. To address suchaims, we studied the 11 dimensions of the Argentine electoral cycle using mixedmethods. On the one hand, we made a qualitative reconstruction of each of thestages of the 2021 electoral cycle in Argentina. For this, we analysed thelegal framework and regulations and did media monitoring. We also conducted anin-depth interview with the National Electoral Director of the Ministry of theInterior, to learn more about the process of organising the 2021 elections.Finally, to get a better idea of ​​how the elections actually worked under thepandemic scenario, we used the Perceptions on Electoral Integrity PEI 8.0database and studied the assessment of experts on the electoral cycle ofArgentina 2021.@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0cm;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}