Cloudflare is on a mission to help build a better Internet. As one of the world’s largest networks, we believe it is our duty to help protect the most vulnerable voices and most critical institutions on the Internet.

In September 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security informed 21 states that their voter registration files or public election websites had been targeted for cyber attack. Among the many things state and local officials are responsible for in the election space are election websites. Just like every other Internet property, election websites need to be fast, they need to be reliable, and they need to be secure. Yet, scarce budgets too often prevent governments from getting the right resources to prevent attacks and stay online.

As we look to the 2020 U.S. elections, we are reminded that having an Internet be secure and accessible for campaigns and citizens alike is critical to our democracy. At Cloudflare, we support the security of election system infrastructure by providing security, performance, and reliability to eligible state and local government websites, in addition to political campaign websites, for free.

Trevor and Rich, CIO and CTO respectively at the Colorado Secretary of State, have been implementing new technology for decades and are always looking for the best resources to protect the state's election website. The Athenian Project allows them to effortlessly protect their election infrastructure with security and performance tools strong enough to block large scale DDoS attacks or unexpected spikes in traffic.