This Friday morning the Security Council discussed how to democratic elections can be easily falsified and how foreign interference could damage the outcomes. So it was new ways to prevent this were idealized.
South Africa called for Social Media and online forum/service providers to create and provide platforms for flagging, investigating, and intercepting unusual traffic that could possibly be interfering with the outcome of an election. This could possibly be a major stepping stone in stopping electoral interference. The delegation of France did not feel that the cause was clear enough and felt that unusual traffic patterns are not necessarily signs of interference, and noted that such investigations could interfere with personal privacy.
While South Africa’s call is a good start in terms of avoiding voter fraud/interference, France’s response is reasonable because it values personal freedom and privacy, something that all democracies should highly value.
Here are some of the clauses passed by the Security Council thus far:
Topic- Securing elections from domestic and international interference
Belgium - Urges United nations to include transparency index on elections which would extend to how the ballots are taken, data on the collection and counting of such ballots and data on how private corporations could be conflicting and changing the possible outcome of the election and secure the power of democracy.
UK - Recognizes voter interference has a strong impact on democracies and urges UNSC to take such measures
Iran - Uses and supports the use of checking elections for certification of the winner.
Democratic Republic of Congo - Acknowledges and accepts the use of punishments for the interference of democratic elections in Nations and furthermore allows the use of foreign supervision of election. The sentence will vary depending on who the perpetrator was (Nation, political group/party, single individual, group/party) and the severity of the interference. Third-party interference or indirect actions on election fraud will be punished and sentenced on trial.
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