Using case studies from experts in fields such as computer science, law and public policy, this special report offers recommendations to guide policy-makers and stakeholders on how to protect elections from next-generation technologies and the threats they pose to democracy.

Disinformation has fundamentally altered the functioning of our public square and our democracy. Increasingly, fair and factual debate is a rarity. The experiment outlined in this report sought to test Facebook’s ad review system by attempting to approve advertisements that explicitly promoted election disinformation narratives that were common in the last US election.

This discussion paper argues that voter ID will increase administrative complexity and cost, lead to longer queues at polling booths, and act as a further deterrent to an electorate already showing signs of disengagement with the political process.

The approach recommended in this report will need to be regularly reviewed to ensure that it is effective and appropriate. Government funding for research into the impact of social media on elections would assist future policy reviews, as would several of the transparency measures recommended in this report.

This research uses New Zealand electoral survey data to examine the impact two large external shocks had on the development of New Zealand First, one of the oldest populist political parties in the OECD.