Electoral Manipulation in Liberal Democracies

Electoral Manipulation in Liberal Democracies

Future generations will consider the beginning of the 21st century as a historic moment when the effectiveness of elections as a democratic procedure began to be exhausted. The primary reason for this phenomenon is the refinement of existing and the emergence of entirely new tools used to manipulate both the results at the polls and the election outcome. Online communication, big data, psychographics and behavioural microtargeting are new weapons politicians have come to wield. In fact, they do not hesitate to use them in the game they play with voters, crushing the very democratic foundations of election integrity in the process. Contemporary democracy fails to find any socially effective response to disinformation, alternative facts, or partisan agencification of the media. As citizens, we most often learn about this too late, once a repentant whistleblower has decided to inform the general public. However, since the political system is increasingly less capable of institutionally guaranteeing the integrity of the electoral process, it should not be surprising that questions arise about the objectification and instrumentalisation of the voter’s role in democracy.