Budapest 2022
Electoral Integrity Conference
Defend democracy and it will defend you
Elections are the bedrock of democracy. Yet threats to electoral integrity extend far beyond the ballot box, from political financing to state capture of democratic institutions and media to disinformation. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows what happens when authoritarianism and democratic decline is allowed to grow unchecked. This trend away from democracy, and towards hybrid-regimes that openly challenge the rule of law, makes the need to defend the institutions and processes that safeguard democracy more important than ever.
Organised by Unhack Democracy in partnership with Romanian NGO Funky Citizens, this two-day event brought together a New Generation of activists, civil society, election watchdog and pro-democracy groups with academics, journalists, politicians and funders focusing on defending electoral integrity in the Black Sea Region, Belarus, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
By re-framing the conversation around the role of democracy, identifying cross-border trends and sharing innovative best practice solutions, this event provided a platform to safeguard electoral integrity and strengthen democracy through civic engagement across the region.
Discover the key moments from the conference. Below, you'll find a collection of videos featuring highlights from each panel discussion.
Watch our highlight videos
Hybrid regimes: Countering state capture and interference in democratic institution
Freedom House’s 2022 Nations in Transit report revealed that for the first time this century, the prevailing form of governance in Central-Eastern Europe & Central Asia is the hybrid regime. Hybrid regimes risk developing into dictatorships with Russia's war against Ukraine an example of the deadly consequences of this trend. This panel focuses on failures of electoral management and rule of law violations facilitated by growing government interference/state capture of democratic institutions including media across Europe and the Black Sea region. By analysing these anti-democratic trends from both outside and inside the EU this session identifies how civil society can work to reverse electoral and institutional engineering and rebuild trust in democratic institutions.
Panelists: Garvan Walshe (Unhack Democracy), Mike Smeltzer (Freedom House), Edit Zgut (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology), Miklós Ligeti (Transparency International Hungary), Krzysztof Izdebski (Stefan Batory Foundation)
Defining and defending democracy in the digital age
What do the rise of tech platforms in the political sphere and a new generation of tech-savvy political actors mean for ‘democracy’? This session looks at what civil society is doing to counter disinformation, improve transparency around the financing of online campaigns and political advertising, and help election management bodies move with the times.
Panelists: Kyle Taylor (Fair Vote UK), Lisa Reppell (IFES), Maia Mazurkiewicz (Alliance4Europe), Nino Dolidze (ISFED)
Innovation in the face of tyranny - Belarusian civil society
This session brings together leading Belarusian civil society groups and political actors to discuss how they have used innovative strategies to engage, organise and mobilise citizens against the regime. This is followed by a panel discussion on how to safeguard civil society/political actors, the change of strategy following the war in Ukraine, and what the future holds.
Panelists: Alexandra Logvinova (Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya), Mike Ananyin (Meta-Belarus), Tsimafei Malakhouski (Honest People), NATALLIA ZHABURONAK (Honest People)
Not free or fair? Rethinking election observation in the EU
This panel asks whether a new methodology for election observation is needed to counter the growing threat posed to electoral integrity by hybrid regimes across the region. Should EU institutions do more to counter electoral irregularities and democratic backsliding within its own borders and what role can and should domestic observers play in safeguarding and strengthening their own elections?
Panelists: Vujo Ilic (CRTA), Meaghan Fitzgerald (ODIHR), Pierre Peytier (ENEMO), Zofia Lutkiewicz (PAF), Adam Busuleanu (EPDE)
How to make democracy sexy again
Closing out the conference, this final session looks at why democracy is increasingly under threat across Europe and Black Sea Region, and the idea of ‘democracy’ increasingly undervalued, especially amongst the young. This panel explores how to re-frame elections and election work (including developing a new lexicon), to position democracy as the cornerstone from which to tackle issues such as climate change, and in so doing engage a new generation of political actors.
Panelists: Benjamin Novak (New York Times), Márta Pardavi (Hungarian Helsinki Committee), Mindaugas Lapinskas (campaign strategists), András Simonyi (Atlantic Council), Anna Ackermann (EcoAction)
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