When Are Elections Good Enough? Validating or Annulling Election Results The proliferation of non-traditional sources of news and the growth of social media as a mechanism for distribution of information has had both positive and negative effects on democratic self-government. On the one hand, new technologies have made it easier to network and share information, especially for people without access to traditional forms of media. At the same time, it is clear that this new openness has facilitated the spread of false or inflammatory material that can do real harm to dialogue and reasoned decision-making. For example, in the 2014 Indonesian presidential election, a hoax news story that one of the candidates was not Muslim, but was secretly Christian, spread widely. While the candidate in question went on to win the election, it is troubling that such a falsehood was able to gain such currency. These kinds of hoaxes and fake news present particularly difficult challenges for election administrators and adjudicators in strongly polarized polities, where there may be little agreement on basic facts to begin with. Even if it can be proven that false information was widely distributed and that some voters were influenced, annulment might not be an appropriate remedy. More research is needed to identify and test possible responses to these kinds of problems. The inadequacy of annulment as a remedy for these emerging threats to electoral integrity argues in favor of a focus on preventative measures; EMBs and other authorities should make every effort to limit the impact of these problems before each election. In particular, EMBs should identify, minimize, and mitigate the risks inherent in using technology for electoral purposes, and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) has developed a Holistic Exposure and Adaptation Testing process that examines and addresses five different types of exposure related to the use of election technology: human, political, procedural, legal and technological. Referendum Irregularities Referendums, which often run concurrently with candidate elections, are exposed to the same integrity vulnerabilities as general elections. Although referendums may be focused on an issue, rather than on a specific candidate, they are regularly focused on fundamental political or constitutional changes. Hence, the annulment remedy should be available and the same procedural considerations (discussed below) should apply. The Venice Commission, in the Code of Good Practice on Referendums, states that “in the event of a failure to abide by the statutory requirements, for instance, if the cap on spending is exceeded by a significant margin, the vote must be annulled,”54 which is closest to the ”prescriptive” approach outlined in the first section of this paper. Following the U.K. Brexit referendum, the U.K. Electoral Commission electoral commission found that the “Vote Leave” campaign had violated the rules by, among other things, exceeding spending limits,55 54 Jon Danzig, “The EU referendum must be annulled,” EUROPE: A blog by Jon Danzig, July 17, 2018, https://europe.ideasoneurope.eu/2018/07/17/the-eu-referendum-must-be-annulled/. 55 Emma Graham-Harrison, “Vote Leave broke electoral law and British democracy is shaken,” The Guardian, July 17, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/17/vote-leave-broke-electoral-law-and-britishdemocracy-is-shaken. 15