Elections are a hallmark of democracy, making them prime targets for foreign interference. Find ASD’s work on the foreign threats to election infrastructure and electoral processes, as well as steps democracies can take to secure them, on this page.
Lessons from Other Democracies: Ideas for Combatting Mistrust and Polarization in US Elections
Introduction Protections are baked into each stage of US election administration. For example, nearly every state has paper records of each vote, safeguards to ensure the chain of custody of those ballots, and the ability to go back and count each [...]
Laura Thornton in Dallas Morning News: Foreign Influence Is Still an Election Threat
A few weeks ago, at an event focused on democratic decline in the United States, I raised the persistent threat of foreign autocratic actors. The audience reacted ambivalently. “That’s so 2016,” one attendee remarked. The conversation moved on to mo [...]
ASD Event at Brussels Forum 2023 | US Elections in 2024: Politics, Ukraine Support, and Challenges to Democracy
Experts in opinion polling and politics join this discussion around the 2024 presidential race in the United States. Presidential politics could impact the trajectory of the “New Atlanticism” and US support for Ukraine as isolationist or “America Fi [...]
What to Watch in Turkey’s Run-Off Election
What happened in the first round? In Turkey’s first round election held on May 14, tens of millions of voters turned out for both sides. There was intense competition on a playing field that the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan skewed heavi [...]
Turkey’s Election: Mostly Free, Anything but Fair
Elections in Turkey had high turn-out, meaningful results, and little violence, but that doesn’t mean they were free from autocratic manipulation on the part of the regime. On Sunday, Turkish voters went to the polls in a mostly free but highly unf [...]
Autocrats Within
Executive Summary The greatest threats facing the two most consequential elections in and around Europe in 2023—Turkey in May and Poland in the fall—come from autocratic corruption within these two backsliding democracies. Both these countries are [...]
Securing 2024: Defending US Elections through Investment and Reform
Introduction As a result of the 2020 and 2022 federal elections, the job of administering elections has dramatically changed in the United States, and the demands on the dedicated officials that run our elections have also increased. The people wh [...]
David Levine Discusses the 5 Ps of Election Administration on Dead Men Don’t Vote
David Levine is an experienced elections professional with a wide range of expertise in election security, administration, and policy. He currently serves as the Election Integrity Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan initi [...]
Our Experts’ 2023 Policy Wish List to Strengthen Democracy
At the start of the new year, we asked our experts to each put forth one recommendation that would strengthen democracy during a period of declining trust, emboldened autocrats, and war. Their answers touch on a variety of issues—from the war in Ukr [...]
Laura Thornton in The Hill: Another American Gift to Autocrats
A favorite tune in the foreign information operations playlist is that democracies are in disarray, are inefficient, and do not deliver for citizens. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, China attacked the ability of democracies to ha [...]
David Levine in Idaho Statesman: Three Steps Idaho Can Take to Bolster Election Integrity and Trust in Voting Process
Despite fears of false and misleading election information resulting in more election worker threats and doubt about the 2022 elections, Idaho appears to have emerged from the midterms relatively unscathed. Idaho election officials and their partner [...]
15 Minutes with Elections Expert David Levine
OSET Institute's feature interview is with David Levine, Elections Integrity Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund. David is a non-practicing lawyer and previously, the Ada County, Idaho Elections Director. David [...]