Election hacking imperils democracy
The French presidential election is internationally significant for several reasons. One of them transcends partisan political battles. It is about an existential threat to Western-style democracies. The pre-election hack of French President-elect Emmanuel Macron’s emails is a clear warning that genuine democracies will have to defend their elections from shadowy internet stalkers.
We live in an age when cyberskulduggery aims to undermine the legitimacy of our election systems. This can ultimately undermine the legitimacy of elected governments.
It gives authoritarian regimes a powerful weapon that is cheap and relatively easy to use against countries that are stronger economically and militarily.
Such a serious threat should not be ignored, minimized or politicized. It has to be faced head-on.
The massive hacking of Macron’s campaign did not hurt the candidate whose promise of openness and international engagement was the opposite of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen’s populism and isolationism. Macron got 66 percent of the vote.
But hacking his campaign was part of a learning process by those who want to steer elections by nefarious means. There are suggestions Russia was behind it. Sound familiar? There is no conclusive evidence that the hacking of the Democratic National Committee changed the outcome of the 2016 U.S. election that put Donald Trump in the White House. But the intent to manipulate our election was unmistakable.
U.S. intelligence agencies have clearly stated the Russia sought to influence the election in Trump’s favor.
The debate over whether Russia succeeded is far less important than facing this ugly fact: We are in the early days of cyber-warfare and the cyber-weapons testing will continue.
Eventually, these silent attacks on the democratic process will become much more effective unless we prepare. We have to be ready.
In 2016, a hostile foreign nation was able to gain access to private documents that were then made public with the goal of swaying the U.S. election.
In France, the hacked documents from a political campaign were laced with fake information, according to Macron’s campaign. It was an even more aggressive attempt by shadowy internet hackers to confound an open election process.
Investigations of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. election are ongoing, including congressional hearings and a Justice Department investigation.
But Trump has downplayed the significance of what happened. He and some of his followers see the effort to get the facts as an attack on the president.
But this should not be seen through a political lens. This is not candidate vs. candidate. This is us vs. them. There is a lot at stake.
The threat is bigger than any one candidate or either political party. The response has to be unified and robust.
We need to learn the modus operandi of the hackers to find ways to protect our campaigns and our form of government by the people, which is loathed by authoritarian dictators the world over.
All genuine democracies should be on notice: The threat is real and it is not going away.
In the analysis of the closely watched French election, much emphasis will be put on the French voters' rejection of rising international populist and isolationist sentiment.
In that context, the French election followed a recent trend in Austria and the Netherlands, where voters in both countries rejected far-right populist candidates. France makes it three for three.
Some see it as a reversal of last year’s U.S. election of Trump and the Brexit, Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Both were seen as victories for populism and isolationism.
This political analysis is important. But you can bet it will divide along partisan lines and result in posturing and pontificating. As usual.
The analysis of the role of cyberattacks on modern elections is equally important — but we cannot let it become just another political brawl.
This is far too important. This has to rise above politics.