The Institute of Intergovernmental Relations

Queen's University School of Policy Studies

IIGR Newsletter

February 2021

This month's newsletter features fellow Holly Ann Garnett's scholarship on the intergovernmental dimensions of the integrity of electoral processes. The IIGR and School of Policy Studies are the new home of the Electoral Integrity Project, for which Dr. Garnett is director. With provinces, territories, and perhaps even the federal government soon running elections during a pandemic, there is a renewed interest in how elections can adhere to standards of integrity while facing unprecedented challenges.

Chrisitan Leuprecht, Director, IIGR

Holly Ann Garnett

Assistant Professor of Political Science Royal Military College, and cross-appointed at Queen's University Kingston
Holly Ann Garnett is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and cross-appointed faculty at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Her research examines how electoral integrity can be strengthened throughout the electoral cycle, including electoral management, registration and voting procedures, election technology and cyber-security, civic literacy and campaign finance.

Electoral Integrity Project

In January 2021, Dr. Garnett was selected as the new director of the Electoral Integrity Project, an international research project which addresses three major questions:

When do elections meet international standards of electoral integrity?
What happens when elections fail to do so?
And what can be done to mitigate these problems?

The Electoral Integrity Project produces innovative and policy-relevant research comparing elections worldwide. This includes the flagship Perceptions of Electoral Integrity Index, and other datasets on electoral management worldwide. All data are publicly available for analysis by scholars and practitioners. See: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/PEI

The project is co-directed with Dr. Toby S. James (University of East Anglia), and has relocated to the Royal Military College of Canada/Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. It was founded in 2012 by Professor Pippa Norris and originally based at and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the University of Sydney.

In 2021, the project will focus on three key themes:

ELECTIONS AND COVID - Co-Director Toby James is PI on an ESRC-funded study with Alistair Clark and Erik Asplund from International IDEA on how the pandemic is shaping electoral integrity.
CYBER-THREATS TO DEMOCRACY - Director Holly Ann Garnett is leading a series of research studies, funded in part by a NATO Resiliency Grant, on public trust and civic attitudes in an era of dis- and mis-information.
PARTICIPATION OF UNDER-REPRESENTED GROUPS - Building on the edited volume ‘Building Inclusive Elections,’ (Routledge, 2020, Ed James & Garnett) we are prioritizing the further the study of the participation of marginalized groups, with a specific focus this year on citizens with low literacy levels and disabilities.

Recent Publications by Holly Ann Garnett

Elections around the world are plagued with the problem of unequal levels of participation. This can have profound consequences for election results, representation and policies. This book focuses on the interventions that can be used to redress the turnout gap and other inequalities within the electoral process. The book defines the concept of inclusive voting practices to refer to policy instruments which can reduce turnout inequality between groups and mitigate other inequalities within the electoral process. Studies from around the world then examine how policies can affect inclusivity on election day. This includes research on enfranchising felons and migrant communities; compulsory voting; voter ID requirements; voter registration practices; investment in electoral management; gendered electoral violence; accessible voting practices; and overseas voting. As a result, this book will be of interest to scholars of democracy, democratic theory and elections, as well as having major policy implications worldwide. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Policy Studies.

For more information on this publication

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