Electoral integrity scholarship has made noteworthy progress studying national elections, yet a vital blind spot persists: the governance decisions conducted by political organizations –such as political parties, trade unions, civil society organizations and youth organizations– remain almost entirely beyond its analytical scope. These political actors collectively constitute a vital intermediate layer of democratic life, shaping who leads, whose voices are amplified, and how citizens relate to the political system. This open letter warns that their internal electoral processes are a site of frequent malpractice, that existing regulatory frameworks are wholly inadequate, and that the rapid digitalization of processes has introduced new vulnerabilities requiring urgent attention. We call on researchers, funding bodies, and policymakers to develop a new, interdisciplinary research agenda on electoral integrity within and across all major forms of democratic organization.
Villaplana et al. (2026) studied this question.