The effects of microtargeting on the (in)equality of voting rights

Abstract

The principle of equal voting rights is one of the foundational pillars of all democratic systems. Yet, pure electoral equality is almost impossible to put into practice. The structure of the electoral system inevitably affects the actual value of a vote. For example, differences in constituency sizes, electoral thresholds, and seat allocation formulas determine how much real weight each individual voter carries. The rapid evolution of political digital marketing has further increased the potential inequalities between voters. Through microtargeting, political actors can precisely identify and segment voters, and reach them with tailored messages. They can direct their resources toward voters they consider strategically valuable, while ignoring those they deem electorally irrelevant. The question must be asked: does this modern democratic process still treat all voters as equally important? The European Union addressed the issues of microtargeting through the Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising. Following the regulation's implementation, platforms such as Meta and Google restricted political advertising across the EU. Still, the inequality risks have not gone away. Microtargeting may return in some form in the future, and pose further challenges for the EU. Meanwhile, microtargeting continues to operate freely in countries outside the EU, for example Serbia, the United States, and Australia. This article employs a normative and comparative legal analysis, examining the EU regulatory framework alongside practices in selected non-EU countries. The findings suggest that as long as microtargeting exists, the equality of voting rights will always be vulnerable.