Election Integrity: Visibility Without Accountability
⚠️ Disclaimer: This blogpost is AI-generated for presentation purposes only. It does not reflect real data or official assessments.
📊 Note: Reports like this will be based on real ALIGNED dataset insights. You can fully customize it here to explore topics that matter to you.
Using the ALIGNED dataset to analyze Commission references to electoral conditions in Serbia from 2014–2023 reveals a sharp increase in mentions of media pluralism and campaign finance, yet no corresponding improvement in scores.
The dataset shows a clustering of negative evaluations every election year, most notably in 2020 and 2022. Notably, even as technical reforms were adopted, ALIGNED flags that Commission language remained stuck in “serious concerns persist” mode.
Graph 1. Assessment of Serbia’s effort regarding elections (2014-2024)
Source: Reform Track (2025). ALIGNED fake dataset. [fake dataset]
This suggests that surface-level reforms—often cited as efforts—failed to shift evaluative tone.
More importantly, the findings show a concerning pattern of predictable criticism without escalation: every electoral cycle brings expected commentary, but little pressure for structural change. ALIGNED illustrates that while certain electoral vulnerabilities are consistently flagged, the framing rarely shifts toward stronger language or actionable recommendations. This stagnation undermines the EU’s leverage and allows procedural manipulation to become normalized within the reform discourse.
Election integrity is repeatedly raised, but rarely re-evaluated.
