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As millions of Americans voted in the midterm elections on November 6, 25 students working with the Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P) observed the elections unfolding in five states across the country. The team, comprised of students from Harvard Kennedy School, MIT, and Tufts, spent the last three months learning about election systems and processes in the United States. Armed with information from D3P’s “State and Local Election Playbook” and its Tabletop Exercise (TTX) training for 120 election officials from 38 different states in early 2018, this year’s student team was eager to engage with election officials and continue providing support to the men and women who are at the frontlines of protecting our democracy.

More than 120 state and local election officials from 38 states gathered in Cambridge in March to participate in role-playing exercises that provided them with tips, tools, and training to fortify their election systems against cyber attacks and information operations.

Ingenuity was on full display in March as students from Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, and other leading universities pitched ideas to prevent or reduce malicious cyber attacks. Their proposals were part of Defending Digital Democracy’s first Information Operations Technical and Policy Hackathon and the culmination of a D3P conference dedicated to fortifying election security.

Undaunted, a group of young civil servants is working directly with political operatives and state and local officials to fortify campaigns and elections against cyberattacks and information operations: Harvard Kennedy School students affiliated with the Belfer Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P).

For Debora Plunkett, joining forces with the Belfer Center’s Defending Digital Democracy project was much more than an academic opportunity—it was her duty as an American. Russian meddling in the 2016 election “hit at the core of me as an American,” she said. “I am offended that anyone would try to limit, distort, or alter the rights of Americans to vote, and so I’m interested in helping to develop and deliver security guidance that will help campaigns better understand and respond to current-day cyber threaats and vulnerabilities.”

In July, the Belfer Center launched a new, bipartisan initiative called the Defending Digital Democracy Project  (D3P). Led by Belfer Center Co-Director Eric Rosenbach, along with the former campaign managers for Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, the project aims to identify and recommend strategies, tools, and technology to protect democratic processes and systems from cyber and information attacks.