Aaron Shull, managing director at CIGI, says Canada’s federal electoral process is secure but warns that municipalities remain vulnerable to cyberattacks and disinformationAlicia Wynter
Canada’s federal electoral infrastructure is among the most secure in the world, but as foreign interference tactics become more sophisticated, threats to the country’s democratic integrity remain.
When it comes to registering, casting and counting ballots, Canada’s electoral system has enviable strengths, says Holly Ann Garnett, an associate professor of political sciences at the Royal Military College, cross appointed at Queen’s University.
“Our electoral legislation has been modernized and updated to reflect the new information space, and that’s not the case in a lot of countries,” explains Dr. Garnett, co-director of the international Electoral Integrity Project and co-author of the 2022 book Cyber-Threats to Canadian Democracy. “With the [federal government’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections] task force, there are procedures in place, and that’s something not all countries are doing well in terms of interagency co-operation.”
The most significant cybersecurity measure protecting the integrity of Canada’s elections might be the relatively minimal use of technology in the process.
“Because we have what some could argue is an antiquated paper-based system with physical ballot boxes, it’s almost impossible for a foreign actor to come and mess with that,” Dr. Garnett says. “In terms of electoral integrity, Canada is a world leader.”
According to the National Cyber Security Index, which ranks preparedness and ability to prevent and respond to cyber threats, Canada ranks sixth in the world.
“With the support of our security partners, we maintain up-to-date situational awareness of new and emerging threats,” an Elections Canada representative replied via e-mail. “We work with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) so that any anomalies on any of our platforms or systems can be quickly detected, thanks to extensive monitoring capabilities across both agencies.”
Even if the Canadian electoral process is well protected from cyberattack, it does not mean elections are immune from digital threats.
“There’s a higher degree of foreign interference in elections, and I think that’s owed to a few phenomena,” says Aaron Shull, managing director and general counsel at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a public policy research institution that specializes in global governance.
Mr. Shull explains that while most observers will point the finger at social-media platforms for the increase in foreign political disinformation campaigns, he suggests their ability to target users and capture their attention is only one piece of the puzzle.
“There’s a higher level of tension between Western liberal democracies and let’s call them hostile authoritarian states,” he says. “That creates an incentive structure to try and muck with the other side, and the risk-reward calculus favours offence because it’s hard to trace it back to you, and even if you can, what can they even do about it?”
Rather than targeting the electoral process, Mr. Shull says attackers are more likely to attempt to damage the credibility of political parties, candidates and faith in a free-and-fair outcome.
“The bad guys will hack into campaign e-mails or someone’s personal e-mails and leak embarrassing stuff – the most high-profile example of that would be John Podesta when he was Hillary Clinton’s [U.S.] campaign manager,” he says. “You don’t even have to swing the outcome, you just have to swing the perception that the race was fair, and that can be enough.”
Such campaigns are perpetrated using new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), but on a deeper level, Mr. Shull says they primarily exploit evolutionary weaknesses in human psychology.
“It’s an unfair fight,” he says. “We’re bringing a brain that evolves over thousands of years to a technological fight that’s evolved in the past 10 years in a manner that we’ve never seen before.”
Mr. Shull adds that he, too, has high confidence in the security of the country’s electoral process, pointing out that colleagues and contacts in foreign security agencies often express envy at Canada’s federal election integrity. Where he does see vulnerabilities are within other levels of government.
“In our system, where our capability is the highest is actually where democracy touches people the least,” he says. “The bulk of a democracy rests at the municipal level: If your kids’ school gets hacked, or your water turns off, or your lights don’t work, or your garbage doesn’t get picked up, people tend to notice that. But we have the absolute lowest level of [cybersecurity] capability there.”
Recent cyberattacks targeting the Calgary Public Library, The Duffin Creek Water Pollution Control Plant and the Toronto District School Board – to name just a few – demonstrate the reality of such threats.
“I’m not overly worried about the federal system,” he says. “I imagine you’re going to see some hack and leak stuff, I would imagine you’re going to see disinformation operations and the more traditional foreign interference stuff ramp up – but when it comes to hard core cybersecurity, the main game is municipalities.”