This annual report is the third issue of the Carter Center’s Finding Firmer Ground series on U.S.-China Relations. This series is published by the Carter Center’s China Focus with generous support from the Ford Foundation and other organizations.
Topic:
Education, Bilateral Relations, Higher Education, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
The Carter Center analyzed social media in Honduras during the 2021 electoral process, focusing on the period around the primaries in March and the general election in November. The purpose was to assess the political debate on social networks during the elections, the extent of disinformation and how it spread, and the role played by Honduran politicians.
Topic:
Elections, Media, Social Media, and Digitalization
The risk-limiting audit (RLA) is a statistical technique for limiting the risk of certifying an incorrect election outcome — that is, the risk that the apparent winner did not in fact receive the most votes. A random sample of paper ballots is visually checked by auditors, and the results are compared with the outcome reported by the tabulator/scanner equipment. If there is sufficiently strong statistical evidence based on this sample that the reported outcome was correct, the audit stops and the tabulated result is confirmed. If evidence from the sample is inconclusive, another sample is drawn, potentially progressing all the way to a full hand recount. The RLA thus either confirms the reported outcome or corrects it.
Topic:
Elections, Election watch, Election Observation, and Audit
During an electoral process, electoral actors, whether contestants or noncontestants, have the right to advertise political ideas in accordance with the right of expression. However, political advertising may be subject to reasonable limitations through regulations imposed by domestic law, including who can run political advertisements, when and where they may run advertisements, restrictions on advertising expenditure levels, and reporting and disclosure requirements to ensure transparency, accountability, and a level playing field. Increasingly, election contestants and noncontestants are using social media platforms to advertise political ideas.
This report looks back with respect and admiration on the decision of America’s and China’s leaders to restore normal diplomatic relations after a 30-year hiatus that witnessed war, economic isolation, and the bitter evaporation of long-standing contacts between the American and Chinese people. Its recommendations seek to contribute to an updated vision of U.S. engagement across the next century.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Hegemony, Conflict, Peace, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America
We have long admired the wisdom and sage approaches that President Jimmy Carter and Secretary James A. Baker, III, have exhibited throughout their careers in public service. Understanding that the delicate balance of our democracy pivots on a fulcrum of support for public projects and policy, they have consistently emphasized strategies designed to achieve key objectives and gain support from both sides of the political aisle.
Topic:
Democracy, Leadership, Public Service, and Partisanship
Michael Baldassaro, Katie Harbath, and Michael Scholtens
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The Carter Center today published “The Big Lie and Big Tech,” a new report that details the role played by “repeat offenders”—media known to repeatedly publish false and misleading information—in spreading election fraud narratives in online echo chambers during the 2020 election.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Mass Media, Elections, Social Media, Disinformation, and Election Interference
In May 2020, the Carter Center’s China Program partnered with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) and the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) to organize a virtual workshop on Africa-U.S.-China cooperation on COVID-19 response. The workshop brought together a range of experts from the U.S, China, Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya, and South Africa to discuss the public health impact and wider policy implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the African continent. Emory University’s Global Health Institute and The Hunger Project also helped identify speakers and moderate panels.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, United States, China, Asia, South Africa, North America, Ethiopia, and Burundi
This report details the research methodology and approach in assessing the status of women and barriers to their participation in various aspects of the electoral process and as stakeholders. It presents key findings and offers recommendations to all stakeholders to increase women’s full political participation in future elections.
Following the November 2020 election, Georgia conducted a risk-limiting audit (RLA) of the presidential race. This audit constituted the largest hand tally of an election race in U.S. history. The Carter Center, which has observed more than 110 elections in 39 countries, was the only nonpartisan organization credentialed by the Office of the Secretary of State to provide an impartial assessment of the implementation of the audit process. The Center had the same access provided to the political party monitors who were present throughout the state. In deploying independent monitors to observe the Georgia RLA, The Carter Center hoped to bolster voter confidence in Georgia’s electoral process by assessing the state’s efforts to improve the transparency of its elections.
Topic:
Corruption, Elections, Voting, Participation, Election Dispute, and Audit