The voter registration website for the EU referendum crashed
Bernard Jenkin has urged the government to take action to prevent potential foreign interference in the electoral process before June’s general election.
Earlier this month, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said it was possible that a cyber attack had been behind a crash of the Government’s register to vote website during the EU referendum campaign.
It recommended that a team should be set up to work across the Cabinet Office, Electoral Commission, GCHQ and local government to monitor, respond to and contain potential cyber attacks.
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Jenkin, who chairs the committee, has told The House magazine the government should accelerate its response in light of Theresa May’s decision to call an early election for 8 June.
“We made a recommendation that the Cabinet Office should establish a cyber working group to monitor cyber interference in our electoral processes, in cooperation with GCHQ,” he said.
“It would probably be after the election that the government responds to this report, but they could implement this recommendation now and they should.”
Foreign interference in elections has shot up the agenda since reports emerged about the influence of Russian hacking in the US presidential campaign, but Mr Jenkin stressed the need to keep the importance of such attacks in perspective.
He said: “The most impossible thing to hack is a polling station where people are going into a voting booth and voting. The only bit that was possibly knocked over in the referendum was a brand new central registration system which hadn't been properly tested or protected…
“We need to understand the psychological intent behind these kinds of attacks. Russia delights in everybody talking about how they may be interfering in the election of Trump or the French election. Whether they are succeeding or not is of secondary importance to them. Everyone is advertising their power and influence.”