Science & Technology

50 Items

Voters mark their ballots during early voting at the Park Slope Armory in Brooklyn, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020.

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

Report - Defending Digital Democracy

Beyond 2020: Policy Recommendations for the Future of Election Security

| February 2021

The 2020 election presents a paradox. Despite dramatic changes to the election process due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly complex threats since the 2016 election, 2020 is widely regarded as “the most secure [election] in American history.” Operationally, it was also one of the smoothest. State and local election officials overcame unprecedented challenges and scarce resources to administer an election with fewer incidents of cyber compromises, technical failures or long lines than anticipated. After Election Day, recount procedures functioned as designed. Yet, amidst these successes, officials from both parties faced a barrage of mis- and disinformation about the election process that served to undermine confidence in the result.

Though the election security ecosystem survived the triple threat of cybersecurity, physical security, and mis- and disinformation in 2020, this success will prove to be hard to replicate in future election cycles without proper investment and reinforcement.

D3P Helps Safeguard 2020 Elections

| Fall 2020

A number of factors in the fall of 2020 made it easier for agents of disinformation to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election process and results—before, during, and after election day. Working to thwart them, however, was an army of well-trained election officials. Much of their training was carried out by the Belfer Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P). 

Voters line up in voting booths to cast their ballots at Robious Elementary School in Richmond, Va. on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. The mural in the background was painted by 3rd and 4th graders at the school in preparation for Veterans Day.

Shelby Lum/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP

Paper

The Elections Battle Staff Playbook

December 2019

Our previous Playbooks have focused on the threats posed by cyber attacks and information operations. This Playbook has a broader scope, and equips you with strategies to operationalize the guidance from past Playbooks through effective preparation, communication, incident tracking, and team organization. By compiling best practices from private and public sector actors, we hope to enhance the capacity of your election team, regardless of your staff or jurisdiction size. It will better prepare you to identify issues and respond to incidents of all types during election operations.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Charting Cyber's Future

| Fall/Winter 2019-2020

From safeguarding elections - to engaging with China's cyber officials - to protecting user data, the Center's cyber initiatives are working to protect the public from digital dangers and make this technical arena more accessible. This fall, the Belfer Center named Lauren Zabierek, Maria Barsallo Lynch, and Julia Voo to head three of the Center’s growing cyber-related projects: The Cyber Project, Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P), and China Cyber Policy Initiative (CCPI), respectively.

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Testimony - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Debora Plunkett Testimony to House Judiciary Committee Hearing "Securing America's Elections"

| Sep. 27, 2019

Debora A. Plunkett, Senior Fellow with the Defending Digital Democracy Project, testified before the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing Friday, September 27, 2019, titled "Securing America's Elections." Links are included to a video of the hearing and a PDF of Plunkett's testimony. 

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Press Release - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center Names Directors for Cyber Projects

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School has named Lauren Zabierek, Maria Barsallo Lynch, and Julia Voo to head three of the Center’s growing cyber-related projects. They will run the Center’s Cyber Project, Defending Digital Democracy Project, and China Cyber Policy Initiative, respectively.

 

Cables connected to server racks at a data center in Switzerland.

AP Photo/KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini

Analysis & Opinions

How to Win the Battle Over Data

| Sep. 17, 2019

It can be tough to craft regulations and national security policies for data and technology that do not fall afoul of democratic and capitalist values. A national information strategy can sound, or indeed become, Orwellian without the right political leadership. But to thrive in the twenty-first century, democracies must now put information at the center of domestic, security, and foreign policy.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

D3P Helps States Increase Security for 2020 Elections

Summer 2019

As threats to U.S. elections multiply, the Belfer Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P) continues to help election officials fight back. Coordinated by D3P’s Mari Dugas, the Defending Digital Democracy team of staff and students has worked during the year with state and local election officials in their own states across the country to conduct election security tabletop exercises and has also expanded engagement with cybersecurity professionals.

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

The Geopolitics of Information

| May 28, 2019

To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.

Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow and the 28 Permanent Representatives to the North Atlantic Council visit NATO’s cyber defence centre at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium on Friday, 23 January 2015.

NATO

Report - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

National Counter-Information Operations Strategy

| February 2019

While nation-state competitors have employed propaganda and information operations (IO) targeting the United States for decades, in recent years their efforts have changed dramatically. The rise of the Internet and social media as mechanisms for disseminating news has made our country both more globally interconnected and simultaneously more vulnerable to foreign efforts to destabilize our democracy. There is now clear evidence that Russia used influence operations designed to undermine U.S. democracy and citizens’ trust in its integrity in both the 2016 and 2018 election cycles. Adversaries are actively using information as a weapon to attack the United States, our political system, and citizens’ trust in it.