Digital Public Infrastructure For Electoral Processes, An Opportunity To Increase Trust And Enhance Democratic Governance

In recent years, several G20 countries have faced significant political unrest fueled by electoral misinformation, a dangerous mix of political polarization and the amplification of false claims about electoral integrity via media and social media. These events underscore the urgent need to combat misinformation and restore public trust in both democratic processes, and the technologies used during an election. This policy brief explores the challenges surrounding the digitization of electoral processes and proposes innovative approaches to solving them through cooperation, openness, and synergies from all sectors, emphasizing shared standards and community involvement. It builds upon the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration commitment to improving access to digital services and digital public infrastructure. The brief is informed by a concrete example through a case study of Argentina, illustrating the difficulties and opportunities at the intersection of elections, data, and digitization. As Brazil, during its G20 presidency, aims to elevate democracy as a cornerstone for addressing global challenges, the brief stresses the opportunity for G20 countries to increase public confidence in electoral processes by adopting a digital public infrastructure stack to enhance electoral integrity globally. This includes developing secure, interoperable systems built on open standards, which can be adapted across jurisdictions, and maintained and improved through international cooperation, taking into consideration a trusted, rights-based, people-centric digitization of the electoral processes.