Democracy is as strong as we make it - what can be done to protect elections?

After Russia’s interference in the 2016 US Presidential election and numerous European anti-disinformation efforts to protect this past May’s European Parliament elections, an awareness of a need to ensure election security has risen substantially. The next national elections will therefore inevitably raise questions about resilience of democratic processes and institutions. In Europe, years of experience have significantly contributed to a debate about exploitation of internal vulnerabilities by malign actors, especially around electoral periods. As former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in his September 2018 State of the Union speech, “[I]n our online world, the risk of interference and manipulation has never been so high. It is time to bring our election rules up to speed with the digital age to protect European democracy.” It is, however, not enough to pay attention to such concerns and start addressing them a few months before citizens go to vote. The work must cover the full election cycle and cannot start nor stop with elections.

This June’s European Commission’s Report on the implementation of the Action Plan Against Disinformation praises improved coordination of EU member states’ election authorities and practical steps taken to increase cyber security of electoral infrastructure also thanks to the European Network Information Security Agency, which was set up back in 2004. Information operations and cyberattacks are not new threats, but it takes a long time to make progress in building necessary resilience in our ever-evolving digitized era. There are still many measures that can be implemented to make democratic processes and institutions in Europe and elsewhere more resilient. Specifically, national and EU bodies need to increase resources invested in countering foreign malign influence operations and in coordinating their responses, raise costs for foreign interference, pass legislation to ban foreign funding of political parties, and systematically share information on detecting these threats. Several actionable recommendations have been highlighted in the first Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies (2018), and others have been added in the ASD European Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies (2019). Both documents offer comprehensive analyses of the statu quo in the United States and in Europe in defending against foreign interference threats and provide a roadmap to secure democracies in a more effective way. It is necessary to identify and expose interference, apply lessons learned, and adopt sustainable policy responses to deter against malign actions aiming to undermine democracy.

Key lessons and policy recommendations to counter foreign interference and disinformation in elections

The European Parliament elections were not free from disinformation. Inauthentic behavior on online platforms – such as the use of fake accounts and autonomous programs known as bots - attempted to create public discord through spreading numerous narratives and divisive material on a variety of issues including immigration, nationalism and other tailored local controversial topics. This is not a new phenomenon anymore. Similar information operations were waged against U.S. elections and national elections and referenda in several European nations. 

Yet, the security threats to democracies continuously evolve as malign actors adopt new tools and behavior to confuse, undermine and divide democratic societies. Yesterday’s bots and trolls may yield to new technological threats. Exposing various tools of interference helps raise awareness and understand the threat in a more comprehensive way. It also demonstrates to those who want to harm that they are closely monitored, potentially serving as a deterrent to future malign activity. The following three recommendations can serve as good models for increasing societal resilience to these threats.
 

First, there is a need to improve coordination and information sharing within and between national governments and with other stakeholders. While many states recognize the threat and take a proactive approach to share intelligence during the whole election cycle, others neglect it.  Systematic and consistent work with other stakeholders including with private sector, media organizations and civil society is necessary to coordinate actions, share knowledge and implement existing and new tools effectively. The work of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, which exposed gathered intelligence on Russia’s disinformation campaigns prior to last year’s Swedish parliamentary elections, is often mentioned to demonstrate a good practice which could be considered by other countries.

Greater interagency coordination between various parts of the government, as well as between national and local governments, is required to address foreign interference in a timely, coordinated and a more effective manner. The EU would strengthen its approach by centralizing efforts and building a better threat perception across its institutions. Appointing a senior-level coordinator for foreign interference, connecting actions and inputs from various sectors and across several EU bodies working on these issues, would synchronize efforts, better conceptualize the full threat, and align policy objectives. The relatively new Rapid Alert System set up in order to better detect inauthentic behavior and share relevant intelligence between allies in a timely and secure manner, is a step in the right direction towards achieving better coordination and effective response to online threats. In order to become more effective, individual states must standardize their channels of communication and systemize the information sharing. A centralized point of contact and mechanism for tracking and analyzing asymmetric threats at the national level would also break down silos within and between bureaucracies to more holistically identify and counter foreign interference.
 

Second, the media must remain vigilant in its political reporting to ensure that it does not inadvertently enhance the effectiveness of interference operations, and should support investigative journalism through adequate financial means and ensured legal support. Quality journalism is essential to a healthy public sphere. News outlets play a central role in the protection of democracies from disinformation, since they can effectively contribute to minimizing the reproduction or amplification of disinformation, and maximize verified quality news. Media organizations and journalists should enhance their transparency and rebuild trust with the public through a variety of ways, including the use of fact-checking, transparency about ownership and financing, and providing public information about their editorial code of conduct. Furthermore, they should avoid the spread of sensational unverified news, or hacked information without increased caution, provide explainers and context to readers to better understand multifaceted stories, and enhance local journalism.

Finally, social media companies need to institute strong policies to identify and shut down falsified accounts. Some of the Russian Internet Research Agency’s most damaging tactics utilized social media and online information platforms. Major platforms with high concentration of power  aren’t subject to regulation as media companies or public utilities. Social media companies, however, should focus primarily on identifying malign actors and inauthentic behavior used to manipulate and deceive people online, as well as disinformation efforts by certain actors and hate speech. Prior to the European Parliament elections in May, Facebook changed its political ads policy to prevent foreign interference in national elections through its platform. However well-intentioned the policy may have been, it failed to recognize important differences between electoral environments.  For example,  European parliament election campaigning is conducted by pan-European political groups and it is necessary to ensure that legitimate voices present across EU member states’ borders are heard. The policy, even with later granted exemptions, represents restrictions to legitimate cross-border campaigns within the EU, which are crucial to raising awareness and sharing information with voters by pan-European political groups registered in Belgium. Such decisions need to be conducted in a consistent and coordinated manner with other relevant stakeholders. The fact that the EU institutions wrote a letter asking Facebook to change the policy shows that the EU policy makers do not take these political ads policy lightly. It also shows the potential need to regulate social media companies rather than leave them to regulate themselves. EU political parties’ campaign managers found this new ad policy problematic in terms of hindering of dialogue and it forced them to re-assess their campaign strategies just a few weeks before the EP elections.

The regulation of these giants is not an easy task, but on a voluntary basis they should thoroughly adhere to their commitments under the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation and provide policy makers with appropriate, contextualized information and updates to facilitate implementation of the code. This should lead to improvements of the existing tools to counter interference undermining democratic processes and systems. Ultimately though, the non-binding legal tools such as the Code of Practice on Disinformation are far from enough, and much more progress is still needed to hold the tech platforms accountable. Progress should encompass increased transparency of political ads, disclosing methods of detecting inauthentic behavior online, and timely and consistent cooperation with other actors, including independent researchers.

Enhanced collaboration on best practices between EU institutions, governments, private actors, and other relevant stakeholders such as media and civil society, will lead to a more robust protection of electoral systems and democratic processes. Democratic actors and citizens should also better use the tools, capacity and rights to address the remaining vulnerabilities and efficiency of current policies, institutions and processes. Casting a vote to select democratic representatives and a healthy public debate are an essential part of democracy, and citizens ought to vote and debate freely and safely from authoritarian interference. If freedom and security is what we value greatly, we must remember that our democracy is only as strong as we make it, and only as resilient as we all build it.