Protecting the Electoral Process and its Institutions

This thought piece is prepared for the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC) to (a) facilitate its understanding of critical cyber security issues related to protecting the democratic institutions necessary to conduct free and fair elections, and (b) identify key topics that may be suitable for further research commissioned by the GCSC.

In keeping with the intent of the GCSC commissioners, this memorandum limits its discussion to the actual mechanisms of conducting elections and does not address foreign or domestic influence campaigns aimed at manipulating an electorate’s preferences. Those issues have been analyzed elsewhere by this author and merit further attention; however, they lie outside the scope of this paper.

Prepared by Sean Kanuck