Digital campaigning is on the rise across the world, and political parties and candidates spend more of their financial resources online. Other aspects of political finance—such as fundraising and reporting of parties’ and candidates’ finances—have also moved to the digital realm. While this trend creates new opportunities for reaching voters and for political participation, regulators are confronted with new challenges in their approach to this phenomenon. Existing regulatory frameworks are often insufficient to cope with the digitalization of campaign finance and need to be adapted. Yet many questions remain on how the rules should be changed and which regulatory approach should be followed.
This report offers an overview of the recent developments regarding digital campaign finance. Building on insights and findings from in-depth case studies—on Albania, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, the European Union, India, Kosovo, Mexico, Montenegro, Nigeria and the United States—it discusses the main challenges faced. While these countries might differ in their specific political and electoral contexts, they experience very similar regulatory difficulties. Studying these cases enables the identification of best practices and possible lessons that can be drawn for political finance oversight bodies, civil society organizations, political party officials and legislators worldwide.
After an introductory section, the first part of this report discusses the current landscape of online campaign finance and identifies the main regulatory choices that exist: from a total ban on online campaigns, to incorporating the digital aspects into the rules on traditional campaigning, to the development of specific rules for online advertising. Regulators can opt for self-regulation or binding rules and can concentrate their regulatory efforts on political actors or online platforms. In the second part of the report, the most important issues in the regulatory framework governing online campaign finance are discussed. These include the full extent of the definition of digital campaigning, the differences in regulating online and physical campaigns, and the difficulties regarding official campaign periods and the concept of electoral silence.
The third and fourth parts of this report focus on the oversight of online campaign finance, with particular attention given to the role of monitoring agencies, civil society organizations, the media and online platforms. The fifth part goes into the main regulatory challenges, such as online third-party campaigning and in-kind contributions, cross-border campaigning and foreign interference, microcredits and cryptocurrencies, and the use of influencers and digital marketing firms.