Russia interfered in the 2016 election and may try to sway next year’s vote as well. But it’s not the only nation with an eye on U.S. politics.
American officials sounding the alarm about foreign efforts to disrupt the 2020 election include multiple countries in that warning. Concerns abound not only about possible hacking of campaigns but also about the spread of disinformation on social media and potential efforts to breach voting databases and even alter votes.
The anxiety goes beyond the possibility that U.S. adversaries could directly affect election results: The mere hint of foreign meddling could undermine public confidence in vote tallies, a worrisome possibility in a tight election.
“Unfortunately, it’s not just Russia anymore. In particular, China, Iran, a couple of others, studied what the Russians did in 2016,” said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
U.S. intelligence agencies reported Russian, Chinese and Iranian influence activities targeting last year’s midterms, and a senior FBI official last week singled out Beijing as a particular source of concern. Meanwhile, Microsoft recently reported that Iranian hackers had targeted an unidentified presidential campaign along with government officials, journalists and prominent expatriate Iranians.
Any foreign effort to interfere in the 2020 election won’t necessarily mirror Russia’s attack in 2016, when Kremlin-linked military intelligence officers hacked Democratic emails and shared them with WikiLeaks to try to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
More likely are the social media campaigns, like the Russian-based one that shaped public opinion in the 2016 election and divided Americans on hot-button topics like race and religion. Facebook announced recently that it has removed four networks of fake, state-backed misinformation-spreading accounts based in Russia and Iran. The company said the networks sought to disrupt elections in the U.S., North Africa and Latin America.
A recent Senate Intelligence Committee report described Russia’s social media activities as a “vastly more complex and strategic assault on the United States than was initially understood.” A recent memo prepared by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warned that Russia may use social media to exacerbate divisions within political parties during primaries or hack election websites to spread misinformation on voting processes.