A study produced annually by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance indicates that the result of almost 20% of the elections held between 2020 and 2024 was contested by one of the losing candidates or parties, after they raised doubts about the act of voting or the counting ballots.
The growing contestation of results and the continuous decline in participation is threatening the credibility of electoral processes. Report authors also found that the percentage of the voting-age population that votes has fallen by almost ten percentage points in 15 years, from 65.2% in 2008 to 55.5% in 2023.
The “very slow and long-term decline in the level of electoral participation” and the increase over the last four years in the number of disputes over election results are “indications that people think the quality of elections is not as good as it should be,” said Alexander Hudson.