Elections are the cornerstone of democracy, but like all public functions they are vulnerable to disruption by events in the natural world, including earthquakes, floods, wildfires and heatwaves. As the climate changes, many natural hazards are increasing in frequency and severity, prompting electoral practitioners to seek ways to protect the vote from such phenomena. Managing Natural Hazards and Climate Risks in Elections surveys the risk that meteorological and geological events pose to elections and offers an analysis of the strategies that electoral management bodies (EMBs) around the world have put in place to safeguard electoral processes.

The report draws on a rich database of more than 100 cases of disaster-disrupted elections between 2006 and 2025 to document the various effects that events in the natural world can have on all aspects of the electoral cycle and to delineate the range of strategies that are available to electoral administrators to minimize their adverse consequences. The report also includes 13 chapters that present detailed studies from 6 continents in which hazards such as storms, floods, heatwaves and earthquakes have interfered with campaigning and polling. Each case includes an evaluation of the measures that EMBs have taken to ensure the smooth running of the electoral process and a summary of lessons learned from the case in question. Together, the analyses contained in this report provide a foundation for understanding and managing the risk that natural hazards pose to elections in the contemporary world, and they foreground the numerous ways that coping with them has enabled practitioners to strengthen electoral institutions.