Lesson learnt from failure - Reflection on Macau Civil Vote 2019

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Civic / unofficial referendums have been a means of cultivating civic engagement and expressing collective opinions. In the context of Hong Kong and Macau, China has attempted to clamp down on civic votes/referendums. In the past few years, these votes experienced varying extents of cyberattacks and even the abuse of criminal procedures.

In the case of the 2019 Vote on Chief Execution Election in Macau, the vote organiser was forced to close the vote prematurely after encountering multifaceted attacks. The presentation will cover the political threats facing the vote and the technical aspect of the defence. I will discuss the pattern of the Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, whether over-engineering is necessary and the measures taken to mitigate these threats. Despite the success in the defence on the technical front, the vote ended up a failure. Key members of the vote organiser received threats to their personal safety. Not only did the organiser halt the vote but also cancelled a planned press conference at which the results would be announced. The lessons learnt from the failure of the 2019 Macau Vote might help others plan a similar vote in the future.