VCW 2021: How can Cybersecurity Best Practices Protect Election Integrity in Developed and Developing Democracies?

Election insecurity and issues of its integrity affect voters’ confidence. Allowing attackers to subvert election infrastructures weakens the credibility of the voting results. Presently, there is no particular way of addressing this lack of voter trust. This study aims to address such a gap by establishing the role of cybersecurity measures and best practices in solving the challenges facing election security. The study first provides a historical overview of voting systems in the U.S. and Kenya, threats in technologies in elections systems within these two countries, and examples of known mitigations for these insecurities. Election integrity is defined along with an elaboration on when an election meets such integrity criteria. The author further examines threats actors that interfere in elections, the types of cyberattacks the actors use to affect election integrity and the motives that inspire them to disrupt the traditional selection processes. This research delves into a cross-disciplinary inquiry of seeking effective cybersecurity measures that could be used to maintain voter’s trust and protect election integrity. The author proposes a qualitative case study method with data collected through interviewing election practitioners and cybersecurity experts. One of the expected outcomes of this study is to highlight the lessons that both states have learned from their last elections and how they could conform to new technology to protect their elections. The ultimate goal is to develop a consistent, widely accepted set of cybersecurity best practices that could secure election infrastructure.