So far in 2020, 65 elections have been held around the world. Despite the pandemic, these election events have recorded an average of 64% participation between March and October, with only a 2.2% drop in previous elections in respective countries.
This is detailed by a study conducted by the Constitutional Laboratory of Diego Portales University (UDP), which accounted for 154 planned elections in the world by 2020. 84 of them are maintained on schedule (54.5%), while 70 suffered some form of date postponement (45.5%).
The report argues that “of the total postponed elections, 23 of them have already been held and 33 of them did not define a specific date for their realization. On average, the postponement of elections has been five months.”
It also notes that “between 1 January and 4 October 2020 we recorded a total of 65 elections held, of which 42 were held on their original date (64.6%), while 23 were held on a new date (35.4%)”.
“We were able to systematize the percentage of voter turnout at 40 election events between 1 March and 4 October 2020. On average, the electoral participation rate reported by the respective electoral bodies averaged 64%, with an electoral participation rate of 61% being found between March and June and 66% between July and October,” the UDP Constitutional Laboratory said.
Finally, the variation in the participation rate in relation to previous election events was analyzed. “For them we obtained information for 32 cases. We note that in 12 countries voter turnout was increased in relation to the immediately previous electoral process by checking 5.3 more points, highlighting South Korea, Poland and Burundi.”
“In 20 countries there is a drop of 6.9 points on average, relative to the previous election event, highlighting the cases of Malawi, the Dominican Republic, and Macedonia.”
See the full report here.
