By: Jacob Rabin
November 13, 2024
The 2016 and 2020 elections proved that foreign actors had both the capacity and the desire to meddle in American elections. The 2024 election season showed us that not only has foreign interest in US elections remained high, but that these actors have devised new methods to interfere. Americans must be cognizant of these efforts, as it is likely they will continue to ramp up and evolve.
Following the 2016 election, a 448 page investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined that “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” Interference included cyber hacks of the Democratic National Committee, a systematic social media campaign, and even links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
In 2020, the National Intelligence Council determined that in addition to attempted election interference inside the United States, President Putin authorized “operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.” Meanwhile, it was determined that Iran “carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects” as well as “undermine public confidence in the electoral process and US institutions, and sow division and exacerbate societal tensions in the US”
In 2024, however, we saw a revamped playbook, including much of the old and some new. Like before, the interference started months in advance of November 5th.
In September, the Department of Justice unveiled an indictment revealing that Russia funded right-wing “influencers” to spread Russian propaganda. The indictment says that the influencers were unknowingly duped, but their followings totaled millions.
It could take just moments of scrolling on social media to see the effects of Artificial Intelligence and “bots” online. This X thread by an open source intelligence researcher named Elise Thomas reveals a plethora of bots, all posting in support of Donald Trump. A Clemson University research report determined that there was “An army of political propaganda accounts powered by artificial intelligence” posing “as real people on X to argue in favor of Republican candidates and causes.”
On an otherwise smooth Election Day, bomb threats that U.S. officials linked to Russia disrupted voting in multiple swing states. The Arizona Attorney General stated that two thirds of Arizona’s counties received threats. The Georgia Secretary of State reported that the state received over 60 threats, many to primarily Democratic voting counties. The FBI published a statement on Election Day stating that they were aware of the threats and that election integrity is “among the FBI’s highest priorities.”
Ultimately, this interference is not only aimed at disrupting and influencing American elections. It also seeks to undermine the confidence of the American public in our complex election system. So far, it has done just that. In conjunction with Donald Trump’s baseless lies, this misinformation has led only 65% of voters to believe the 2020 election was free and fair. Just 30% of Republicans said the same. These same numbers were 72% and 87% in 2004.
Ultimately all of these examples over the last 8 or more years tell the story of a monumental issue: American elections are at risk.
We can only expect interference to continue and worsen. At the end of the day, intelligence agencies and social media networks can only do so much to limit what gets through.
As American citizens, we must be diligent. We must spend our time learning, reading, and understanding what is going on and what is at stake. We cannot blindly believe anything on the internet–we must return to an age of critical thinking to protect ourselves and our future. Otherwise, there is no telling where things will spiral in the future.
