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In foreign affairs, external interference into the voting system of another country is not a new development. According to a study, it is estimated that US and Russia attempted to influence the national elections around the globe 117 times between 1946 to 2000 (Levin, 2016: 189; quoted in Shackelford et al, 2017: 636).

With the explosion of the internet, some countries have decided to incorporate digital technologies into their voting system as a cost-efficient and flexible solution. While such initiatives come with great benefits, they also come with substantial risks. In other words, in the same way, digital systems can be compromised, electronic voting systems can tamper as well. A recent CFR analysis suggests that none of the above group of counties did make any provisions to safeguard the voting process. Due to the elections cybersecurity not been listed as critical infrastructure¹, the voting system becomes more vulnerable to external interference.

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In due course, a new president will emerge from the US General Election 2016. For many readers and IR -international relations- scholars interested in the American elections, there is a vague idea of how a president is elected since the voting system is quite complicated and the truth is that many factors affect the final result.

The current article aims to cover this gap. The two following sections will more closely consider the US political and electoral system. A thorough and comparative analysis over the two finalists, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, follows in the article 2016 US President Candidates Read more