Key Quote
“The tech industry is the new battlefield where wars will be fought,” Badanes said. “We already see this playing out in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s not as if the private sector has the option of sitting this one out. We are stakeholders, not bystanders, so the question is not if we are going to play a role but which role we’ll play.”
Ginny Badanes has lived a life at the intersection of electoral campaigns and technology. This unique vantage point allows her to fully appreciate the threats posed by bad actors online to campaign operations, election procedures, and reliable information—ultimately, democracy itself. Today, she helps fight back against these threats as a leader in the private sector with the resources of one of the world’s largest technology companies behind her. From protecting national elections to revitalizing local journalism, she leads a unique team that is helping to protect democracy both online and off.
Badanes worked for many years at a Washington, DC-based political tech firm where she used technology to support campaigns for the presidency and Senate. Then, at Microsoft, she worked with political campaigns to improve their use of technology. She saw a lot in her years in politics, but still remembers feeling shaken amidst allegations of foreign interference on the eve of the 2016 election. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft presented her with the chance to build a team focused on preserving and promoting democracy. “I saw an important role for tech companies to play when it came to doing more to protect democracy and democratic institutions,” she recalls. “So I jumped at the opportunity.” Today, she leads the company’s Democracy Forward initiative, which focuses on addressing ongoing challenges to the stability of democracy globally. The program is dedicated to protecting elections, political parties, campaigns, and NGOs from actions that could undermine democracy. It primarily focuses on two areas.
First, the Democracy Forward team helps find ways to protect the integrity of the electoral process.
This includes defending against cyber threats—especially those that come from nation states—while also finding ways to ensure a more open and secure democratic process. One of the main tools in advancing this mission is a free open-source software developer toolkit that is designed to be integrated into voting systems. Called ElectionGuard, this tool employs what is known as ‘end-to-end verifiability’ in order to enhance the security and sanctity of ballots at each step on their journey through the election system. In 2020, Microsoft piloted this software in a real-world election in the small town of Fulton, Wisconsin: population 3,000 and then again during the 2022 midterms with the major voting machine vendor Hart InterCivic and the research-and-development NGO MITRE in Franklin County, Idaho. One voter interviewed after the pilot said they were “excited for us to use new technology in helping us move forward and to eliminate possible human error.”
The second thing Badanes’ team does is help build a healthier information ecosystem.
With the rise of disinformation, Badanes’ team is focused on building internal infrastructure to defend against those threats, enhance media literacy, and—perhaps most interestingly—strengthen journalism. The push to bolster journalism is a holistic one: an effort that goes beyond simply guarding against technology-enabled threats but rather seeks to build new foundations in local communities across the country. “Healthy democracy requires journalism that’s just as healthy,” Badanes explained. “While it’s true to say that technology played a role in the disruption of news, especially local news, I believe it can also be a part of the solution.”
As part of that solution, Microsoft recently partnered with the Knight Foundation, Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, and the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP to provide pro bono legal support for journalists and small news organizations facing subpoenas and other forms of intimidation. Badanes’ team is also helping local newsrooms. They are working directly in several small-town communities across the country and partnering with local foundations to provide the tools and technologies that can help resident journalists and newsrooms thrive locally once more. “The Vanished,” an investigative series on missing and murdered Indigenous women in the Yakima Herald, is one example of the type of project supported by this initiative.
Badanes believes that technology companies like Microsoft have a unique role to play in promoting and defending democracy.
“The tech industry is the new battlefield where wars will be fought,” Badanes said. “We already see this playing out in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s not as if the private sector has the option of sitting this one out. We are stakeholders, not bystanders, so the question is not if we are going to play a role but which role we’ll play.”
And, in Badanes’ view, the role of the private sector is interconnected with the roles of partners in the public sector, which sets conversations and musters political will, and the civil sector, which is a leader in educating the public and building grassroots support. These complementary strengths—combined with the private sector’s innovation, efficiency, and ability to get things done—are critical for any democracy initiative to succeed. “The private, public, and civil sectors all have areas where they excel and areas where they have blind spots. That’s why big, complicated things like this require multi-stakeholder engagement—where everyone contributes from their area but works together.”
And what does Badanes think of the future of democracy?
“First, we have to work to mitigate the negative aspects of technology: the cyberattacks, the deliberate disinformation campaigns, and other harms brought about by state actors and others. This is the work that is being done every day through initiatives like Democracy Forward and I believe we are beginning to turn the tide,” Badanes explains. “As we move forward, I think we’ll come to see technology more as an enabler of democracy; there are initiatives already underway at companies like mine that should give everyone hope.”
To underline her point, Badanes cites the potential of expanding voter access through a first-of-its-kind ‘Disability Voting Index’ that can help those with mobility issues make their voices heard at the ballot box more easily. She also points to a Microsoft co-founded coalition that is developing publicly available technical standards for certifying the history and source of media content. The goal is to combat deepfakes and thus ensure a future where everyone can more fully trust what they are looking at from a visual perspective.
“Technologies like these will help us connect better, overcome previous barriers to access, and agree on common sets of shared truths,” Badanes concludes. “All of which is critical to building a stronger, healthier democracy.”
Key Takeaways
- She leads the company’s Democracy Forward initiative, which focuses on addressing ongoing challenges to the stability of democracy globally. The program is dedicated to protecting elections, political parties, campaigns, and NGOs from actions that could undermine democracy. It primarily focuses on two areas.
- First, the Democracy Forward team helps find ways to protect the integrity of the electoral process. This includes defending against cyber threats—especially those that come from nation states—while also finding ways to ensure a more open and secure democratic process.
- The second thing Badanes’ team does is help build a healthier information ecosystem. With the rise of disinformation, Badanes’ team is focused on building internal infrastructure to defend against those threats, enhance media literacy, and—perhaps most interestingly—strengthen journalism.
