Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity

Last updated
Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity
AbbreviationTCEI
Formation2018
Headquarters Copenhagen,
Denmark and Washington, D.C.
Chair
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Michael Chertoff

The Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity is a bi-partisan initiative by leading figures in politics, tech, media and business from Europe and the US with the aim of addressing the question of foreign interference in elections.

Contents

Foundation

On the sidelines of the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on June 21, 2018, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, founder of Alliance of Democracies and Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of homeland security in America, launched the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity, which has Joe Biden, Nick Clegg, Toomas Ilves, and Felipe Calderón among its members. The commission is tasked with bolstering the defences of Western democracies against outside interference. [1]

The Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity is Transatlantic and bipartisan in nature. It seeks to share lessons learned between decision-makers and institutions in Europe and the US, raise public awareness about the risks of interference while working to develop new models and technologies to empower civil society and governments to defend democracy. [2]

Stated goals

The Commission aims that over the next 20 elections to be held across EU and NATO countries between 2018 and the next American presidential contest in November 2020, they would advance a more collective approach to tackling election interference.

The Commission attempts to bridge three critical gaps it has identified as having thus far prevented the West from effectively addressing the challenge: a transatlantic gap; a partisan gap; and the gap between the tech community and the rest of society.

According to Politico, the commission also launched at the Munich Security Conference, an open call by 14 current and former political leaders for those running in the EU election to sign a pledge in which they promise to adhere to certain principles to counter foreign meddling. [3] The call is for candidates not to spread data or materials for disinformation or propaganda purposes [4]

Founding Members

Co-chairs: [5]

Members: [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anders Fogh Rasmussen</span> Former Prime Minister of Denmark and NATO Secretary General

Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a Danish politician who was the 24th Prime Minister of Denmark from November 2001 to April 2009 and the 12th Secretary General of NATO from August 2009 to October 2014. He became CEO of political consultancy Rasmussen Global and founded the Alliance of Democracies Foundation. He serves as a Senior Adviser to Citigroup. He also served as a senior advisor at The Boston Consulting Group.

The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism, founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toomas Hendrik Ilves</span> President of Estonia from 2006 to 2016

Toomas Hendrik Ilves is an Estonian politician who served as the fourth president of Estonia from 2006 until 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Chertoff</span> American judge

Michael Chertoff is an American attorney who was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security to serve under President George W. Bush. Chertoff also served for one additional day under President Barack Obama. He was the co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. Chertoff previously served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a federal prosecutor, and as Assistant U.S. Attorney General. He succeeded Tom Ridge as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security on February 15, 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert</span> Dutch politician

Jeanine Antoinette Hennis-Plasschaert is a Dutch politician and diplomat serving as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq since 1 November 2018. She is a member of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marietje Schaake</span> Dutch politician

Maria Renske "Marietje" Schaake is a Dutch politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands between 2009 and 2019. She is a member of Democrats 66, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eileen Donahoe</span> American attorney, human rights advocate, and former ambassador

Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, having been appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009. After serving her term as ambassador, Donahoe was appointed as Director of Global Affairs for Human Rights Watch. In 2014, she was also appointed to the board of International Service for Human Rights. She is also an affiliate of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, a center of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at the Freeman Spogli Institute's Cyber Policy Center working at the intersection of governance, technology and human rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alejandro Mayorkas</span> 7th United States Secretary of Homeland Security

Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas is an American government official and attorney who has been serving as the seventh United States Secretary of Homeland Security since February 2, 2021. During the Obama administration, he also served in the Department of Homeland Security, first as director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (2009–2013), and then as deputy secretary of DHS (2013–2016).

Many states and international organisations have reacted to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War in the Donbas region of Ukraine, which began in April 2014. In August 2014 when the intervention of Russian troops in Donbas scaled up, many states condemned this violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ieva Ilves</span> Latvian civil servant

Ieva Ilves is a former First Lady of Estonia, diplomat and cyber security policy expert. Ilves ran as a Latvian candidate for the 2019 European Parliament election. She was the third place candidate for Development/For!, second on the list was Baiba Rubesa, the former CEO of Rail Baltica.

GLOBSEC is a non-partisan, non-governmental organisation based in Bratislava, Slovakia. One of its main activities is the annual GLOBSEC Bratislava Global Security Forum, in existence since 2005. Other projects include the Tatra Summit conference on European affairs or Chateau Béla Central European Strategic Forum. Its think-tank called GLOBSEC Policy Institute boasts a wide research area based on four pillars. Its main outputs are policy papers and analyses on different topics in the area of international politics and security issues. Since 2016, GLOBSEC is not only the name of one of the top forums on international security worldwide, but also of the legal entity and organiser of the Forum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fabrice Pothier</span> French political expert

Fabrice Pothier is a French political expert and CEO of political consultancy, Rasmussen Global. He was part of Emmanuel Macron's La République En Marche and was a former NATO director of policy planning and founding director of Carnegie Europe, an organisation which became one of Europe's leading think-tanks on foreign policy and strategic issues.

The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) is a bi-partisan transatlantic national security advocacy group formed in July 2017 with the stated aim of countering efforts by Russia to undermine democratic institutions in the United States and Europe. As of 2021, it had expanded to combating the malign influence of the Chinese and Iranian governments and their state-backed media outlets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rasmussen Global</span>

Rasmussen Global (RG) is an international political consultancy firm, headquartered in Brussels and Copenhagen. The firm was founded by Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2014 following his term as NATO Secretary General. The company provides strategic advice on issues regarding security policy, transatlantic relations, the European Union, energy, critical raw materials, and space.

The Knight of Freedom Award is a Polish international award conferred annually to "outstanding figures, who promote the values represented by General Casimir Pulaski: freedom, justice, and democracy".

The Alliance of DemocraciesFoundation (AoD) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the advancement of democracy and free markets across the globe. It was established in December 2017 by former NATO Secretary General and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen together with businessman Fritz Schur and lawyer Klaus Søgaard.

The Copenhagen Democracy Summit is an international conference taking place every summer in Copenhagen, Denmark, organised by the Alliance of Democracies. The summit brings together political and business leaders, including current and former heads of government, from the world's democracies. In parallel, a similar conference takes place every winter in Denver, Colorado, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections</span> High-level national security concern

Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections was a matter of concern at the highest level of national security within the United States government, in addition to the computer and social media industries. In 2020, the RAND Corporation was one of the first to release research describing Russia's playbook for interfering in U.S. elections, developed machine-learning tools to detect the interference, and tested strategies to counter Russian interference. In February and August 2020, United States Intelligence Community (USIC) experts warned members of Congress that Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential election in then-President Donald Trump's favor. USIC analysis released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden, including whether they had used Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as a channel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miles Taylor (security expert)</span> Former U.S. government official (born 1986/1987)

Miles Taylor is an American government official who served in the administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump. In the administration of the latter, he was an appointee who served in the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2017 to 2019, including as chief of staff of the DHS. He was first recruited into the department by former DHS Secretary and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, serving as his senior advisor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Murphy (intelligence official)</span> American law enforcement and intelligence officer

Brian Murphy was the acting United States Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis from March 2018 until July 31, 2020.

References

  1. "Countries team up to save the liberal order from Donald Trump". economist.com. 2018-08-02.
  2. "Press release - Transatlantic, bi-partisan Commission launched to prevent election meddling". allianceofdemocracies.org. 2018-05-11.
  3. https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-eu-election-meddling-major-effort/ Russia EU election meddling major effort
  4. The Pledge for Election Integrity
  5. 1 2 "The Campaign for Democracy – Alliance of Democracies".