Information Warfare Attack Vectors and the Influence of Democratic Elections

This study examines the methods, techniques, and research used in studying information warfare and its influence on democratic elections. It explores the use of social media platforms and the role of international organizations in securing electoral processes. The research focuses on the 2016 USA presidential elections, Indian general elections, and Israel's efforts to protect its elections from external interference.

Information Warfare Attack Vectors and the Influence of Democratic Elections
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Methods, techniques, and research used in the study
Research methods and techniques are methodologies that are applied in projects to
outline data collection processes. Considering the nature of the data to be collected, qualitative
methods of data collection are more appropriate as they try to unearth different people opinion
and trends in thoughts. From the analysis of information warfare which focuses majorly on
current Indian and United States Of America (USA) 2016 elections, methods such as
ethnography, and case studies seems to be the best fit for the research (Astalin, 2013). First,
ethnography has been a dominant form of qualitative data collection. The researcher has to
immerse into the group of the participants and tries to understand the current events such as
culture. In this case, it fits into this study by since researcher remains is part of the larger society
where the subjected phenomenon has been taking place. Through ethnography, it is possible to
understand that the 2016 USA presidential elections were interfered with from Russia. From the
analysis, there seems to be an increase in information warfare activities originating from Russia.
Despite threats posed by Russian ability to interfere with electoral waves, confidants believe
America would be able to have free and fair elections. On social media platforms, disinformation
in both India and USA were meant to spread well-structured news, cause havoc by spearheading
specific electoral idea, engaging other social media users and taking controversial online
discussions (Brangetto & Veenendaal, 2016). Since there is no reliable methodology to measure
the rate of social media influence, ethnography forms a clear basis of eliciting such information.
Considering the impact of social media, it was believed that Indian Winner would be determined
by false posts and hate speeches on media such a Twitter and WhatsApp.
Similarly, case studies are popular methods of qualitative data collection as they explain
the concepts and provide evidential support with some data analysis. A good example can be
highlighted from the 2016 USA presidential elections. A case study presented in the year 2017
by Department of Homeland Security (DOHS) revealed some Twitter, Google and Facebook
accounts used by some Russian officials for disinformation (Abrams, 2016). The analysis of the
subjected case study evaluates different use of social media platforms to various events and
politics tops on the list. From the analysis of the case study, it is possible to make some
observation on the influence trick that disinformation may have on elections. It from the case
studies that scholars would solicit the impact of invalidated information as it was witnessed in
the Indian election. Out of all available social media platforms, WhatsApp dominated with more
than 200 million users and 87,000 groups targeting to influence voters. It was evident that before
Indian elections, the state and awareness of disinformation had been observed. Important to note
is that it is through case studies that information can be collected and presented with the
confidence of proof. Therefore, it can be concluded that information warfare has a very high
bearing on democratic elections influence.

Literature review
There are no doubts that internet adoption has been growing and almost all people at
different social classes have access to the internet. As a result, elections campaigns are being
spearheaded through the internet over various social platforms. Twitter, Facebook, and
WhatsApp are some of the common platforms which are being used by the political class to
reach to electorates. Besides promoting their agenda, politicians are using these popular
platforms to display negative personalities against their rivals (Van Niekerk & Maharaj, 2013).
Having noted what happened to big brother the United States of America 2016 presidential
election as a result of information warfare, Chinese have come out to defend its decision to
control information flow over the internet. Although the use of information to control political
ideology has a long history, social media has completely changed the phenomenon. Important to
note that since 1964 Russian has been using propaganda to express its preference for some USA
candidates during elections but new technology adoption has amplified its impact. The 2016
Russian interference with USA presidential election has been considered as one of the polls hit
worst by information warfare (Kogan, Lavertu & Peskowitz, 2017). As an example on the use of
Facebook as a tool, it is presumed Russia publicized 126 events which drew the attention of
340,000 users and more than 10 Million electorates viewed some ads paid for by Russia. Some
of the ads were crafted to popularize preferred presidential candidates while others were meant to
suppress voting regarding target groups (McGeehan, 2018). Earlier before internet adoption,
such activities were difficult to achieve, but in the era of technology, it has been made possible at
a lower cost. On the same note, the use of information warfare by Russian to influence Europe
through divide and rule targeting its population was a tactic to create distrust. The first approach
targeted levels such as NATO and European level. The next aspect had its focus at the regional
level which created division between nations (Carr, 2016). The last one was also on the interstate
level but created division among groups. All these divisions in Europe have been achieved
through information warfare.
During its last general election, Israel was very keen on controlling the outcome of the
election from international interventions. Having noted the influence from countries such as
Russia, Israel was keen on averting cases that were witnessed in previous elections from Spain,
Netherland, and Italy in 2017 (McGeehan, 2018). Israel objective to focus on Information
warfare was solely meant to protect elections from the international influence which was
contrary from other countries where false information was the central focus by politicians. To
control the effects of information warfare, Israel election body come out with draft legislation in
2018 which banned political parties from disseminating messages over the internet. Since all
parties were aware of the ramifications associated with internet and social media platforms in the
election, the draft legislation was well received by the political class. Further, this was an
agreement between the government and company representative such as Twitter, Facebook, and
Google to pull down all message and accounts which would be linked to political parties and
international entities (Downes, 2018). These companies worked closely with the Israel
government by identifying the suspicious accounts and messages and report to the companies for
actions to be taken. It is evident that Israel managed to protect its election from external
interference by setting up committee members drawn from both legal and technological fields.
The committee was charged with responsibilities of advising the electoral body on the processes
that should be undertaken to preserve electoral data integrity. From the analysis, Israel
successfully controlled information warfare both internally and internationally. All other

countries planning to control elections from cyber-attacks and false information were
benchmarking from Israel. From the Indian general elections, it could be asserted that fake news
dominated the entire electoral process (Niekerk & Maharaj, 2013). During the campaign period,
WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter platforms seemed to dominate as the most preferred platform.
The messages were all meant to convince voters since they focused on reaching all electorates at
grassroots. At some point, the Indian election could be described as WhatsApp election. There
are no doubts that Indian elections were driven and determined over the internet, but most
interesting not from external entities like it was in 2016 presidential elections.
Research results
In the wake of the technology across the globe, it is evident that Information warfare has
been there and continues to shape the nature of elections. In this case, Russian can be regarded as
one of the countries interfering with electoral democracies from all over the globe. It interfered
with the 2014 Ukraine elections, followed by the 2016 USA presidential elections and Italy,
France, Germany and the Netherlands 2017 elections (McGeehan, 2018). It has been noted that
information warfare and internet influence on democracies continue to take shape from cyber-
attacker to fake news and information. Important to note is that information warfare trend has
become rampant with current social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp
being used to spread propaganda to many people in a short time. It was observed that in the 2016
USA elections, these platforms were highly used to spread false information as well as control
political realignment. Besides fake news, it is believed Russian hacked into electoral bodies
databases, and the data was used as a campaign mechanism by politicians (Conconi, Sahuguet &
Zanardi, 2014). The information obtained from the electoral parties' database was used to
determine states with many registered voters. With such crucial information, campaigns were
diverted to such areas with the aim of winning confidence from these areas. It is notable that
Israel managed to secure its elections from both internal and international interference by
enacting regulations which helped electoral body as well as government contact credible
elections. In this regard, it is quite evident that state government can enact rules and regulations
to govern elections. Once laws are in place, state governments can enforce them by leasing with
other organizations such as Twitter and Facebook to control online activities. Therefore, both
international organizations and have a critical role to play in securing any electoral process. In
Indian 2019 concluded elections, no much hacking, and cyber-criminals issues were faced, there
was no control on the use of social media platforms as a campaign tool. It was estimated that 200
million users were influenced through WhatsApp which recorded 87, 000 groups. All these
groups are believed to have significantly changed Indian elections considering other platforms
such as Facebook and Twitter had their better share (Howard, 2017). Finally, Israel can be used
as a central point of reference by controlling both hacking and elections propaganda successfully.
References
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