What do Argentina, Costa Rica and Brazil have in common?
They all outranked the United States in a comparison of election standards and procedures conducted by the Electoral Integrity Project. The United States ranked 47th worldwide, out of 139 countries.
The survey is a measure of dozens of factors, including voter registration, campaign financing rules, election laws, the voting process and vote count.
Overall, one in six elections around the world were considered electoral failures. But in general, countries in the Americas and central and eastern Europe, as well as in Asia, were considered to be on the winning side in terms of electoral integrity, with Scandinavian and Western European nations topping the lists.