More than 80% of countries vote, but less than 40% do so freely and fairly

People might associate democracy with having the right to vote. But meaningful democracy is much more than that.

In 2022, nearly every country granted its citizens the right to vote. 85% of them had an elected parliament and government. In 82%, elections were multi-party, meaning that people had more than one option on the ballot. You can see this in the chart.

But, fewer than two-thirds of these elections were genuinely competitive. In others, voters were systematically pressured or intimidated, the timing of elections was violated, or election fraud influenced the results.

Even more concerning, in only 39% of countries were people able to express their political opinions and associate freely.

As a result, just over one-third of countries recently held elections that met all of these democratic criteria and can be considered truly free and fair.