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Russia and Iran are leading a multi-pronged approach to sow discord and undermine confidence in the upcoming US presidential election, according to evaluations made by US government agencies.
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Foreign actors, such as Russia, Iran and China, are increasing their election influence activities and attempting to exacerbate divisions in US society for their benefit during a perceived vulnerable election period, according to a 60 Days until Election 2024 report released by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence earlier this month.
The report stated that to date, there has not been any observed foreign actor seeking to interfere in the conduct of the 2024 elections.
Instead of interference, assessments had discovered that actors were focused on using information operations and propaganda to try to shape voter preferences or undermine confidence in the election, in further efforts to make the democratic system appear weak and keep the US government distracted with internal issues.
“Russia, Iran, and China are all trying by some measure to exacerbate divisions in US society for their own benefit, and see election periods as moments of vulnerability,” according to comments made by experts from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Federal Bureau of Intelligence on 6 September.
“These actors most likely judge that amplifying controversial issues and rhetoric that seeks to divide Americans can serve their interests by making the US and its democratic system look weak, and by keeping the US government distracted with internal issues instead of pushing back on their hostile behaviour globally.
“We have not observed any foreign actor seeking to interfere in the conduct of this election, but it’s something we are constantly monitoring and is a top priority, especially in case foreign actors change their approach.”
The report illustrated that Russia poses the most active foreign influence threat to the elections as it encourages divisive rhetoric and influence election outcomes. In addition, the country allegedly uses US-sanctioned organisations and targeted online influence operations to stoke domestic divisions and push for preferred election outcomes.
The report highlighted that Iran is making a greater effort to stoke discord and undermine election confidence, as well as seek cyber access to individuals with direct ties to the presidential campaigns of both political parties. Iran is reportedly conducting covert social media operations using fake personas and using AI to help publish inauthentic news articles.
“Our update discusses that China is working to build relationships at local levels to oppose individuals that it perceives as particularly anti-Beijing. And this perception that most of Washington is anti-Beijing is one of the drivers to push them to try to influence down-ballot races,” experts said at the briefing on 6 September.
“We would note that this view of China’s activity is consistent with our assessment of their activity in 2020 – the 2022 midterms, where we similarly assessed that China had tacitly approved efforts to try to influence a handful of midterm races involving members of both US political parties. Beijing’s focus was to counter US politicians viewed as anti-China and to support others viewed as pro-China, and that activity that we saw in 2022 is similar to that which is included in today’s update.”
The report also described efforts to cast doubt on the electoral process or claim false interference in a “perception hacking” tactics.
Foreign adversaries may utilise cyber tools to collect information to tailor their influence messages to certain US audiences or embarrass or denigrate particular candidates through leaks, according to the report.
