Intelligence and law enforcement officials say they are tracking efforts by Russia, China, and Iran to influence voters ahead of the 2020 elections and do not believe hackers have been able to disrupt election infrastructure — so far.
Government agencies are under intense pressure to avoid a repeat of 2016 amid the continuing fallout from Russian attempts to sway the outcome of the presidential election.
Analysts warn that America’s election infrastructure needs an overhaul to prevent foreign interference while social media companies, such as Facebook, are under intense pressure to ensure that their platforms cannot be used to spread false or misleading information.
Although intelligence agencies believe influence efforts were not responsible for President Trump’s shock win, this time around officials say they are tracking efforts that could affect the outcome.
“We do believe the 2020 elections are a potential target for state and non-state cyber actors, and we continue to observe unknown actors attempt suspicious and malicious activities against internet-connected infrastructure periodically,” said a senior intelligence official in a briefing call with reporters.
“We currently, however, from intelligence sources have no indication that any foreign adversary has disrupted or corrupted elements of the election infrastructure, such as voting machines and/or vote tally systems that are preparing for the 2020 elections.”
At the same time, they are monitoring multiple attempts to affect voter behavior.
“Foreign influence operations remain a considerable area of concern for us well,” said the official. “We are tracking efforts from several countries to influence the U.S. political environment in a way that could affect results.”
The official said Russia was intent on using social media and English language news services to sow division, China was funding news media in order to promote their interests and policy preferences on subjects such as trade, and Iran was increasing social media to influence opinion on the United States exiting the 2015 nuclear deal, while playing down the impact of economic sanctions.
Administration officials said they were working with all 50 states to protect their election infrastructure and with presidential campaigns to help them protect electronic data.
