Voter manipulation and electoral campaign hijacking by social media technologies: The Romania 2024 case

Informational interventions have become central to safeguarding electoral integrity in an increasingly complex and polarized media environment. This study examines three prominent intervention types fact-checks, labels, and backfire debates and evaluates their effectiveness in shaping political beliefs, mitigating misinformation, and influencing voter behavior. Drawing on theoretical perspectives such as motivated reasoning, cognitive heuristics, and information diffusion, the analysis highlights how individuals process corrective information in ways that are often conditioned by identity, partisanship, and prior beliefs. Empirical evidence suggests that fact-checks can reduce belief in false claims, although their effectiveness varies across audiences and contexts. Labels and visual cues demonstrate mixed outcomes, often reducing engagement with misleading content but sometimes reinforcing partisan biases. Backfire debates reveal the complexities of contested narratives, where corrective efforts may inadvertently strengthen misperceptions under certain conditions. The study further explores methodological approaches, including experimental and quasi-experimental designs, to assess intervention impacts. It concludes that while informational interventions hold promise, their effectiveness depends on timing, design, transparency, and sensitivity to contextual and platform-specific dynamics. Ultimately, the research underscores the need for adaptive, evidence-based strategies that balance accuracy, trust, and democratic accountability in electoral information ecosystems. Keywords: Informational interventions; Fact-checking; Misinformation; Electoral integrity; Backfire effect

ABSTRACT Public perceptions about electoral integrity are vital for the health of a democracy. One factor that can shape these perceptions is how media outlets cover issues such as voter fraud and foreign interference. This study examined the influence of partisan media use (i.e. liberal, conservative) on concerns about voter fraud and foreign interference in the past three presidential elections. We also assessed whether party identification moderates these relationships. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses from the 2016, 2020, and 2024 American National Election Studies (ANES) and the 2020 Annenberg Institutions of Democracy (AIOD) data sets revealed that conservative media use predicted increased voter fraud concerns and lower foreign interference concerns, while liberal media use was associated with lower voter fraud concerns and higher foreign interference concerns, particularly in 2020. Moderation analyses found limited support for partisan differences, although, notably, counter-attitudinal media use had stronger effects than ideologically congruent media use. Ultimately, this study highlights the complex role of partisan media use in shaping public opinion regarding voter fraud and foreign interference in US elections.

ABSTRACT TikTok's algorithm‐driven feed is reshaping electoral communication, yet a clear understanding of its effects is lacking. This study synthesizes and appraises evidence on how the platform's design and governance shape political (dis)information and may affect electoral dynamics. Based on a systematic review of 140 studies published between 2021 and 2025, the paper identifies several recurring patterns. The literature suggests that the platform's algorithms tend to amplify sensational content and may increase youth exposure to political messaging. National security concerns over data sovereignty have prompted platform bans, and opaque “visibility moderation” policies may hinder efforts to correct misinformation. Current research is often limited by small samples and restricted data access, which affects the generalizability of findings. We conclude that TikTok functions as a fast‐moving marketplace for political ideas in which algorithmic incentives may shape conditions relevant to electoral integrity. Therefore, transparent data access and continued cross‐disciplinary research are important for addressing these challenges.

This study examines the relationship between electoral integrity and democratic legitimacy in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic (1999–2023), situating the analysis within the broader West African democratic landscape. Employing qualitative methodology and comparative review of seven electoral cycles, this paper investigates whether electoral integrity genuinely influences democratic legitimacy or remains a theoretical ideal disconnected from political reality. Findings reveal a paradoxical pattern where, despite periodic elections, persistent irregularities including vote buying, result falsification, and violence have undermined both electoral credibility and citizen trust. Notably, voter turnout declined precipitously from 52.3% in 1999 to a historic low of 26.7% in 2023, signaling a profound legitimacy crisis. The study concludes that while electoral integrity significantly impacts democratic legitimacy, institutional constraints and political interference have transformed this relationship into a contested myth, necessitating urgent institutional reforms to restore public confidence.

The Constitution empowers states to manage elections, yet this aspect of federalism poses formidable challenges with overlapping geographic and partisan divisions. We first provide descriptive evidence that, even though nonpartisan election officials use similar methods to protect ballot-counting across the country, Republican voters nationwide report low levels of trust in the elections run by the blue state of California, just as Democrats are less trusting of elections in the red state of Texas. Could a public information campaign providing factual messages from election officials help to restore trust across party lines? We report the results of novel survey experiments that expose respondents in one state to messages produced by election officials in another state. Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all become more trusting once they are exposed to information about other states’ election protections. Our findings suggest that a robust public information campaign by state election officials could mitigate polarized trust in election integrity.

ABSTRACT Purpose: With the widespread adoption of AI-based content generation tools, the boundaries between authentic and synthetic media have blurred considerably. Fabricated video and image content — commonly referred to as deepfakes — now represent a tangible threat to individual privacy, electoral integrity, and institutional trust. This study addresses that challenge by proposing a detection framework capable of identifying forged visual media with high precision. Design/Methodology: A hybrid architecture is developed that unites the spatial discriminative power of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) with the sequential reasoning capability of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) units. The CNN backbone — instantiated as a fine-tuned ResNeXt model — extracts rich frame-level feature representations, while the LSTM layer models temporal patterns across video frames. Findings: On the FaceForensics++ benchmark, the integrated architecture attains an overall detection accuracy of approximately 94%, surpassing both standalone CNN and standalone LSTM baselines by a clear margin. Explainability mechanisms are additionally incorporated to make predictions interpretable for end users and security analysts. Practical Implications: The system is designed for deployment in cybersecurity platforms, digital forensics workflows, and social media content moderation pipelines. Its modular design supports both cloud hosting and edge inference, making it suitable for diverse real-world environments. Keywords: Synthetic Media Detection, Deepfake Identification, Hybrid CNN-LSTM, Transfer Learning with ResNeXt, Temporal Forgery Analysis, Digital Forensics, Explainable Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity.

Village head elections represent a fundamental expression of grassroots democracy, yet informal power networks increasingly exploit electoral processes through mechanisms that subvert democratic principles. This study examines how premanisme (thuggery) operates as social capital in village head elections, specifically analyzing the 2023 election in Sinjai Regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Employing a qualitative case study approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews with community leaders, village officials, candidates, civil society organization members, and villagers, complemented by participatory observation and documentary analysis. The findings reveal that informal power networks systematically appropriate the three structural components of social capital—networks, norms of reciprocity, and trust—to manipulate electoral outcomes. First, multi-layered network architectures penetrate existing social structures, enabling comprehensive voter surveillance, coordinated mobilization, and systematic coercion that constrain genuine political competition. Second, cultural expectations of reciprocity are transformed into binding political obligations enforced through social ostracism, economic sanctions, and physical intimidation, converting electoral participation into debt fulfillment rather than democratic citizenship. Third, bifurcated trust structures—characterized by high particularized trust in patronage networks alongside pervasive institutional distrust—generate self-reinforcing dynamics that entrench clientelistic relationships while delegitimizing democratic alternatives. These findings demonstrate that bonding social capital, when mobilized within asymmetric power relations, produces "dark social capital" that undermines rather than enhances democratic governance. The study contributes theoretical insights regarding the intersection of informal power structures with formal democratic institutions, while providing practical recommendations for strengthening electoral integrity through disrupting patronage-based networks, reducing community economic dependence, and rebuilding institutional trust through transparent governance mechanisms.

ABSTRACT Following nearly a decade of democratization in the early 1990s, an authoritarian backlash appears to be in full swing. This has constrained political society and political pluralism in countries throughout the world. While most countries continue to hold elections at regular intervals, the level of democracy in many of them has precipitously declined. Electoral integrity, judicial independence, and media freedom have been threatened as a result. This special issue seeks to tease out the elements that have contributed to this state of affairs. Through examining various cases in detail in a series of seven scholarly articles on the theme (i.e. one large-N comparative study and six different case studies commissioned from country experts in Armenia, Georgia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Philippines, and South Africa), the contributors aim to determine the causes that have led to chronic weakness in political parties as institutions. They also examine possible future assistance strategies to focus on elements of political party building that have traditionally been neglected as potentially remedy. Such a deep dive is crucial to formulate recommendations directed at improving the development of party aid programmes that want to deal with the issue of polarized electoral competition, political party crisis, and democratic backsliding.

Turkey’s (officially Türkiye) democratic journey from 2000 to 2025 has been marked by notable achievements, persistent challenges, and potential pathways for renewal. Over the past twenty-five years, Turkey implemented constitutional reforms, pursued European Union accession standards, promoted civil liberties, advanced gender equality, and strengthened minority rights. Economic growth and regional influence further reinforced democratic development. However, challenges such as judicial politicization, press restrictions, centralization of executive power, suppression of civil society, electoral integrity concerns, human rights violations, and societal polarization have constrained full democratic consolidation. Drawing on national and international scholarship, this paper examines Turkey’s democratic trajectory, highlighting both accomplishments and obstacles. The study emphasizes strategies for democratic renewal, including restoration of institutional independence, revitalization of civil society, political reconciliation, engagement with international partners, youth empowerment, and linking economic reforms to democratic stability. The findings suggest that, despite setbacks, Turkey possesses the capacity to develop a more inclusive, transparent, and resilient democratic system, offering hope for sustainable political progress.

ABSTRACT 2024 has been called the ‘super election year’ with more than four billion citizens participating in national elections in 74 countries. The introduction of Generative Artificial Intelligence was deemed to ‘upend global elections’ by experts and commentators, particularly through the spread of manipulated audio, images, text or videos. These anxieties were prominently voiced at international fora, including the World Economic Forum and the Munich Security Conference in 2024. To address these risks and protect the integrity of elections, some countries introduced guidelines or codes of conduct on AI use during elections, often swiftly. These codes were introduced by political actors or national election commissions, and they specify either voluntary guidelines or mandatory behavior. Through a comparative analysis of national and international codes of conduct, guidelines, and legal text introduced in 11 countries in 2024, this paper argues that emerging codes of conduct for the use of generative AI in elections reflect competing interpretations of what constitutes a threat to democratic integrity, with particular emphasis on safeguarding public trust rather than solely preventing direct manipulation of outcomes. Through a comparative analysis of regulatory approaches and codes of conduct across political systems, we explore how these instruments define and delimit harmful uses of generative AI and how they institutionalize responsibility through varied models. Our overall assessment is that while these codes represent important early attempts at governance, they often lack enforceability, consistency, and normative clarity, leaving significant gaps in the regulation of generative AI use during elections.

"Election Nail" - A Nail Providing Electoral Integrity Mechanism.

Background: Electoral integrity has emerged as a critical concern in contemporary democratic discourse, particularly amid global democratic backsliding. Indonesia's democratic trajectory shows significant decline, with the 2025 V-Dem report placing it in the 'grey zone', no longer meeting minimum standards of electoral democracy. Public trust in electoral processes fundamentally depends on the organizational governance and neutrality of Election Management Bodies (EMBs).Objective: This study examines how organizational governance and bureaucratic neutrality of election management apparatus influence election quality in Indonesia, employing an integrative framework that connects institutional structures with practical implementation challenges.Method: This qualitative literature review analyzed 32 academic sources from Google Scholar and Scopus databases. Thematic analysis was conducted using a reflexive approach, classifying literature based on institutional structure, bureaucratic behavior, and political interference dynamics.Findings and Implications: The study reveals that election bureaucracy faces structural tensions between procedural rigidity and democratic responsiveness. Bureaucratic politicization, institutional erosion, and inadequate sanction mechanisms significantly compromise electoral integrity. Inter-institutional dynamics between KPU, Bawaslu, and DKPP create coordination challenges that affect election quality.Conclusion: Comprehensive institutional reforms are essential, including restoring independent civil service oversight, strengthening sanction mechanisms, harmonizing fragmented regulations, and enhancing professional capacity of EMBs to restore Indonesia's electoral integrity.

Electoral voter lists form the backbone of democratic processes, ensuring that every eligible citizen is granted a fair opportunity to vote. However, large-scale voter databases often suffer from data quality issues such as duplicate or nearduplicate entries caused by spelling variations, data entry errors, migration, and inconsistent demographic updates. These redundancies can compromise the integrity of elections, increase administrative costs, and reduce public trust. This research proposes an intelligent, analytics-driven framework for detecting duplicate entries in electoral voter lists using a combination of data pre processing techniques, rule-based matching, and machine learning models. The proposed system integrates phonetic similarity, demographic attribute comparison, and supervised classification models to identify potential duplicates with high accuracy. Experimental analysis demonstrates that the hybrid approach significantly outperforms traditional exact-matching techniques, offering a scalable and reliable solution for election management bodies. The study emphasizes transparency, accuracy, and scalability while maintaining compliance with ethical and data privacy considerations.

<p>The 2020 US presidential election not only witnessed an onslaught of accusations that elections were fraudulent, but these accusations implicitly and explicitly utilized racial signals to cast non-White Americans as the perpetrators of voter fraud. Elite rhetoric during and after the 2020 election painted predominantly Black and Latino cities as the epicenters of voter fraud, while also suggesting non-citizens were illegally voting in elections. We argue these racially coded accusations resonated with racially polarized White Americans, decreasing their confidence in the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Using individual-level panel data to measure change in voter confidence among White Americans from 2016–2020, we find that confidence decreased between 2016 and 2020, but that this effect was more pronounced among White Americans who harbored greater racial affective polarization, with effects substantively similar to those of political measures of affective polarization. These results suggest that the racialization of election integrity in the 2020 election decreased voter confidence among the racially polarized White electorate. This study adds to a growing literature demonstrating the extent to which election racialization has permeated American politics and perceptions of electoral integrity specifically.</p>

Digital technologies have moderately reduced inflated voter accreditation figures in Nigeria; however, other forms of electoral fraud continue to undermine electoral integrity. This study argues that technology-based elections have repeatedly suffered biometric device failures because critical enabling factors—such as electricity, internet connectivity, and technical expertise—remain inadequate, hindering the smooth implementation of biometric policies. These challenges have hybridised the electoral system, as policy reversals and the adoption of manual accreditation have undermined INEC’s commitment to fully govern voter accreditation through biometric devices. The study draws on the cybernetic communication model and the frustration–aggression hypothesis for theoretical insights, and employs the documentary method for data collection, with descriptive statistics and content analysis used for data analysis. Findings indicate that biometric device failures, largely caused by infrastructural and human resource deficiencies, facilitate fraud, exacerbate electoral conflicts, and render contests highly controversial. Such failures open avenues for electoral manipulation, generating discontent that manifests in lethal violence, rejection of outcomes through litigation, and voter apathy. These results underscore the urgent need for policy reforms aimed at strengthening technological adoption and improving enabling infrastructure and human capacity, thereby maximizing the intended benefits of biometric systems in Nigerian elections.

Although the Nigerian government has introduced a range of technological innovations between 2015 and 2023, including the Smart Card Reader, Bi-modal Accreditation Voter System (BVAS), the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), and Result Transmission Platforms to curb electoral malpractice, concerns about electoral credibility persist. This study aims to assess the extent to which these technologies enhanced electoral credibility in Nigeria’s 2015, 2019, and 2023 general elections. Drawing on institutional theory as the analytical lens, the study employs a documentary secondary analysis of journal articles, election reports, academic literature, and international election observer reports to evaluate the performance and limitations of electoral technologies. The findings reveal that the introduction of these technologies has reduced manipulations and fraud, including multiple voting, inflated results, and related irregularities, thereby contributing to improved transparency and electoral integrity. However, the study also identifies persistent constraints, such as infrastructure deficits, political interference, technical failures, weak institutional frameworks, insecurity, poor logistics, and pervasive vote buying, which collectively undermine the effectiveness and credibility-enhancing potential of these innovations. Despite these challenges, the 2023 general elections recorded notable progress in the deployment and acceptance of electoral technologies. The study concludes that although technology is necessary for improving the electoral process, it is insufficient to guarantee electoral credibility without robust political will, comprehensive legal and institutional reforms, and active public engagement. The study contributes to the literature on electoral governance and technology by highlighting the conditions under which technological innovations can genuinely enhance electoral credibility and by underscoring the need for civic education, transparent and efficient technological deployment, and stronger institutions to support democratic consolidation.

The problem, policies and politics streams of the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) provides a clear theoretical structure to examine changes in the concept of election integrity since the 2020 election. Increased attention to perceived, but unproven, voter fraud claims (politics), coupled with an environment of mistrust in government institutions and the nationalization of state politics (problem), and push to create laws to restrict access to the ballot (policy) created a policy window that enabled actors to reframe the concept of election integrity. State election laws already define election malfeasance and guide election administrators and public prosecutors on how to adjudicate those that commit it. In this exploratory study, we examine the state of the field as it pertains to the spectrum of approaches undertaken by state legislatures to manage election integrity—from “election fraud” hotlines to expanded jurisdictions to formalized election integrity units. What do these new definitions of integrity look like in practice and how do they impact election administration? We explore the administrative functions, organizational arrangements, and the level of integration within the current governmental structure of these new approaches.

In Bradshaw and Others v United Kingdom , the European Court of Human Rights recognised, for the first time, that disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference engage the right to free elections under Article 3 of Protocol 1 (P1‐3) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It further held that states may have a positive obligation to take measures to protect the integrity of electoral processes against such threats where there is a real risk that the ‘very essence’ of the P1‐3 right will be curtailed and deprived of its effectiveness. While Bradshaw is an important milestone in the emerging jurisprudence on disinformation and foreign interference, it is susceptible to critique along four lines: (i) it reveals a disconnect between the theory and practice of Convention rights; (ii) it leaves significant uncertainty across the Council of Europe about the existence, extent and fulfilment of states’ obligations to protect electoral integrity against such threats; (iii) the evidentiary threshold set by the Court poses a potentially insurmountable hurdle for future claimants, while the threshold for state compliance is comparatively low; and (iv) the Court missed the opportunity to elucidate the ‘public’ aspect of P1‐3 for citizens and states alike.

Since 1990, over 100 countries have extended voting rights to citizens abroad, enfranchising roughly 200 million voters around the world. Yet little scholarship addresses the relationship between external voting and electoral manipulation. Drawing on the path-breaking ‘Menu of Manipulation’ (2002), we systematically explore how voting abroad can strategically violate democratic norms, highlighting tactics deployed by governments around the world to subvert elections through the manipulation of external voting. Our analysis generates several implications regarding relationships between diaspora voting, electoral integrity, regime type, and the role of host states. We provide testable hypotheses, preliminary analyses, and pathways for future empirical research.