2024 has been dubbed ‘Super Election Year’: half the world’s population will go to the polls.

During elections, everyone has the right to accurate, reliable, clear information about candidates, parties, and policies so they can decide who to vote for.

Yet across the globe, authoritarian leaders are undermining people’s ability to exercise their rights at the ballot box. From censoring the internet to disseminating deepfakes, in a conniving attempt to cling onto power, they are increasingly trying to stop voters from accessing reliable information.

Vladmir Putin’s efforts to control what people think and know in Russia (and beyond) have a long history. Over the last 2 years, the Kremlin has embraced disinformation and war propaganda to defend its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, disseminating doctored reports, fabricated social media posts, and deepfakes. In the run-up to Russia’s election on 17 March, campaigns using similar tactics are taking shape.

As in 2016 and 2020, Russian interference in the November presidential election in the United States is also likely to be intense. Recent WIRED reports reveal Russian disinformation campaigns claiming that civil war is imminent in the US, using the current crisis on the Mexico–Texas border to sow its narrative.

In 2016, countries like Russia had entire troll farms pushing disinformation across the world. But today anyone can do it.

As Eddie Perez, former Head of Election Integrity at Twitter, tells Techtonic podcast host Chris Stokel-Walker, the democratisation of disinformation is here – and the impact is profound.

As we can see, the problem is not confined to autocratic rulers. Politicians in democratic countries are increasingly adopting the same tactics, posing grave threats to our right to know, to the integrity of elections, and to democracy itself.

It’s perhaps no surprise to hear that former US President Donald Trump continues to use disinformation to his benefit. But recent revelations that a consultant working for a Democrat candidate admitted to creating an audio clip of President Joe Biden reveal the level of political influence manufactured media can have.

Meanwhile, in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party are repeatedly failing to honour their responsibilities. They have been quick to weaponise disinformation, including to undermine the farmers’ protest movement and delegitimise their demands, sending shockwaves around the world. With an election set for April, political analysts point to routine failures to uphold democratic checks and balances, amid reports of brazen vote-rigging and campaigns to undermine voters who don’t support the ruling party.

These examples are an urgent reminder of the need for voters worldwide to be able to separate truth from fiction in order to cast an informed vote.

Businesses, including social media companies, have obligations to us at election time: they must address any of their practices that may incite violence or undermine people’s right to vote, such as the spread of electoral disinformation. Ultimately, however, governments are responsible for guaranteeing our right to accurate election information.

So how can we – as voters, civil society, and members of the public – strengthen our democracies and make our voices heard?

ARTICLE 19 and regional experts anticipate that Mexico’s election, to be held on 2 June, will be marred by violence, corruption, and impunity. The government is also likely to control what information people can access online. In this context, journalists’ work is crucial to helping people cast an informed vote.

That’s why, ahead of the election, ARTICLE 19’s Mexico and Central America office has created a toolkit to help journalists and activists deal with unfair content removals during elections.

The toolkit:

• Analyses the terms and conditions, community standards, and policies of the 5 most popular digital platforms in Mexico;
• Maps out potential censorship threats and the institutions with the power to request content takedowns; and
• Identifies strategies that human rights defenders and journalists can use to confront these takedowns.

While this toolkit is particularly valuable for journalists and activists, all of us can use it to stand up for our right to information online.

On 15 February, shortly before people in Senegal were due to cast their votes, President Macky Sall announced he was postponing elections by a staggering 10 months. The move prompted widespread protests in which police killed 3 people, including a 16-year-old boy.

Journalists, activists, and opposition figures quickly galvanised, calling for the government to reverse its decision. Days later, this pressure paid off: the country’s top court ruled that Sall’s move was unconstitutional, showing the power of people raising their voices together.

It’s a reminder, too, that Senegal’s reputation as one of Africa’s most stable democracies still holds true, despite the profound political challenges the country currently faces.

After reports of vote rigging in local elections in Pakistan, the winning candidate, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman, refused to take his seat, demanding instead that democratic integrity be upheld.

'Public opinion should be respected, let the winner win, let the loser lose, no one should get anything extra.’

– Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman
(Pakistani politician)

In January, despite being up against China – one of the world’s most sophisticated disinformation operatives – Taiwan elected the Democratic Progressive Party: the very outcome Beijing was trying to prevent.

In the run-up to the elections, Taiwan’s civic tech community created fact-checking chatbots, media-literacy workshops, and disinformation-disrupting hackathons. The government supported their work and embraced radical transparency to guarantee voters’ right to know.

All in all, Taiwan set an incredible example of how, when society unites – public sector, private sector, and the people – digital democracy can prevail against digital authoritarianism.

As these examples show, when we raise our voices together, we can successfully defend our right to comprehensive, accurate, reliable information – which is essential to defending democracy itself.