The internet: An important tool to strengthening electoral integrity

Elections are only meaningful if they are free, fair and transparent. What triggers fairness in elections? In this article, I aim at emphasizing the Internet's potential in improving the fairness and objectivity of elections. Through a multiple regression analysis with data from > 120 countries across the globe, I establish that there is a rather strong link between higher internet penetration and fairer and more transparent elections in both countries that allow a free press and in countries that do not allow a free press. I can derive both practical and theoretical implications from this finding. More practically, this result highlights that the internet improves access to political news, accommodates pluralistic sources of information, and produces platforms for political discourse; all of which should make the electoral process more transparent. More theoretically the article introduces an additional variable aimed at explaining variation in the fairness of the electoral process; a factor, which should be included in future analyses.