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Forthcoming - Holly Ann Garnett, Toby S. James, Sally Broughton Micova, Sofia Caal-Lam, Arife Kose & Jamie Underwood. Electoral Disinformation: Policymakers, Practitioners and Platforms. Bristol University Press.

Across the globe, major concerns have been raised about how about the dissemination of false, inaccurate or misleading information is affecting elections. The phenomenon is posing a threat to voter trust and satisfaction, perceptions of electoral actors and voter turnout, vote choice and other forms of political activity. 

This book focuses on the responses of liberal democracies to these threats and provides a framework for understanding disinformation in the electoral process. It analyses case studies from across the Global North and South that consider the various approaches to address electoral disinformation, from the informal strategies of electoral management bodies to formal regulation through legal mechanisms. 

The book develops a generalised framework for understanding and examining electoral disinformation, encouraging scholars and practitioners to learn from different national contexts.

Holly Ann Garnett. 2026. Who Gives? Who Gets? Who Wins? Money in Canadian Federal Elections. University of Toronto Press. 

Money fuels Canadian elections – but who gives, who gets, and who really wins? This book pulls back the curtain on Canada’s campaign finance system to reveal how money shapes competition, representation, and power. Moving beyond party war chests and national ad blitzes, it zooms in on electoral districts, where local contests ultimately determine the House of Commons and who forms government. 

Following the money from donors to candidates and through to election outcomes, it shows how access to financial resources can make or break a campaign. Not all aspiring representatives can tap into wealthy networks, and not all citizens are equally able to give. While Canadian campaign finance regulations aim to curb the influence of rich donors, businesses, and “special interests,” public policy researcher Holly Ann Garnett asks whether these rules truly level the playing field – or quietly reproduce existing inequalities. 

Accessible, data-driven, and politically timely, Who Gives? Who Gets? Who Wins? challenges readers to reconsider what democratic fairness means in a system where every voter is equal at the ballot box, but not at the bank.

For more, see https://utpdistribution.com/9781487567408/who-gives-who-gets-who-wins/ 

Toby S. James & Holly Ann Garnett. 2026. What is Electoral Integrity? Reconceptualising Election Quality in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge University Press.

There are worldwide concerns about the quality of elections and democracy, but also an ambiguity in academia, the international community and popular discourse about how to define and measure good elections. This Element develops an original concept of electoral integrity based around human empowerment. Elections serve a purpose: they should give citizens voice, empower the everyday citizen against the powerful and act as mechanisms for political equality. Secondly, it argues that there have been major societal 'megatrends', meaning that the holding of elections has moved from the modern era to an age of complexity. This describes an era of demographic, technological, legal, economic and political complexity and fluidity. The greater connection between nodes of activities in the electoral process means that elections held in one part of the world can be very quickly affected by actors and developments elsewhere. Thirdly, it provides new measurement tools to assess election quality. 

For more, see: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/what-is-electoral-integrity/864616E1EEA43FAF6AC91212AEB27232 

Holly Ann Garnett & Toby S. James (Eds). 2026. The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Integrity. Oxford University Press.

Elections are indispensable for the democratic process, yet the quality of elections can vary enormously between and within countries. Elections can often be marred by problems such as disinformation spread on social media, gerrymandered electoral districts, claims of voter fraud, electoral violence and intimidation and low public confidence in voting technology. These concerns about election quality have therefore been central to debates about democratization and democratic backsliding – one of the pressing concerns of our time.

Scholarship over the last ten years has led to enormous advances in defining and measuring this important concept, using the terms “free and fair” elections, “electoral malpractice” (Birch, 2011) and most recently, “electoral integrity”. This work has demonstrated the crucial consequences of electoral integrity for democratic outcomes – from citizen participation and trust in government, to local and global security and peace. Researchers have thus sought to use a variety of academic methods to evaluate how the policies, practices and programmes designed to impact electoral integrity have affected elections around the globe, and advanced or threatened democratic ideals.

The Oxford Handbook on Electoral Integrity is designed to consolidate existing research on electoral integrity for both scholars and practitioners, and launch new research agendas on emerging issues, including the role of emergency preparedness, cyber-security, and civic literacy.  As a field that has expanded and diversified greatly in the past ten years, both among academics and in public discourse, this volume will be a timely contribution to our knowledge of electoral integrity around the globe.  It will be an essential map and tool for academics and practitioners. 

For more, see: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/60845 

Holly Ann Garnett & Michael Pal (Eds). 2022. Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. – Listed in The Hill Times Top 100 books of 2022.

From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to overloaded internet voting servers to faulty voting machines, the growing relationship between democracy and technology has brought to light the challenges associated with integrating new digital tools into the electoral system. Canadian politics has also felt the impact of this migration online.

This timely book presents the first comprehensive study of the various cyber-threats to election integrity across Canadian jurisdictions. Scrutinizing the events of the 2019 federal election, Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy examines how new technologies have affected the practice of electoral politics and what we can do to strengthen future Canadian elections. Through the disciplines of political science, law, computer science, engineering, communications, and others, chapters shed light on some of the most contentious issues around technology and electoral integrity. The contributors address current domestic and foreign threats to Canadian elections, evaluate the behaviour of actors ranging from political parties and interest groups to policymakers and election administrators, and assess emerging legal and regulatory responses while anticipating future challenges to the quality of elections in Canada and around the globe.

Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy helps seed the study of digital technology’s security risks, providing insight into what reforms are needed and evaluating existing legal and policy frameworks in light of these threats.

Toby S. James & Holly Ann Garnett (Eds). 2020. Building Inclusive Elections. New York: Routledge Press.

Elections around the world are plagued with the problem of unequal levels of participation. This can have profound consequences for election results, representation and policies. This book focuses on the interventions that can be used to redress the turnout gap and other inequalities within the electoral process.

The book defines the concept of inclusive voting practices to refer to policy instruments which can reduce turnout inequality between groups and mitigate other inequalities within the electoral process. Studies from around the world then examine how policies can affect inclusivity on election day. This includes research on enfranchising felons and migrant communities; compulsory voting; voter ID requirements; voter registration practices; investment in electoral management; gendered electoral violence; accessible voting practices; and overseas voting. As a result, this book will be of interest to scholars of democracy, democratic theory and elections, as well as having major policy implications worldwide.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Policy Studies.

Holly Ann Garnett & Margarita Zavadskaya (Eds). 2017. Electoral Integrity and Political Regimes: Actors, Strategies and Consequences. New York: Routledge Press.

Following a normative approach that suggests international norms and standards for elections apply universally, regardless of regime type or cultural context, this book examines the challenges to electoral integrity, the actors involved, and the consequences of electoral malpractice and poor electoral integrity that vary by regime type. It bridges the literature on electoral integrity with that of political regime types.

Looking specifically at questions of innovation and learning, corruption and organized crime, political efficacy and turnout, the threat of electoral violence and protest, and finally, the possibility of regime change, it seeks to expand the scholarly understanding of electoral integrity and diverse regimes by exploring the diversity of challenges to electoral integrity, the diversity of actors that are involved and the diversity of consequences that can result.

This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of electoral studies, and more broadly of relevance to comparative politics, international development, political behaviour and democracy, democratization, and autocracy.