Foreign adversaries will try to shake Americans’ confidence in the legitimacy of election results in November by giving voice to false claims or spreading their own disinformation about ballot counting, U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday.
“As we approach Election Day, the intelligence community is also stressing that foreign efforts to undermine America’s democracy won’t end on Nov. 5,” a senior intelligence official told reporters in a virtual briefing.
In its latest assessment of foreign threats to the election, intelligence officials said the main foreign powers seeking to shape the outcome of the vote — Russia, China and Iran — also were focusing on meddling in congressional and state races.
Intelligence agencies expect foreign actors “to continue their campaigns by calling into question the validity of the election’s results after the polls close,” the senior official said. Expecting another tightly contested election for the presidency and Congress, “foreign actors probably will use tactics similar to those that they are using today to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and election processes, as well as to further exacerbate divisions among Americans.”
The foreign adversaries are likely to try to amplify false claims circulating in the U.S. about ballot tampering, as well to seek to “manufacture” falsehoods questioning the legitimacy of the election, the official said.
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that in addition to Russia and China, Cuba was also seeking to undermine or promote congressional, state or local candidates considered helpful or harmful to their regimes’ interests, officials said. In keeping with past elections, Iran was focused only on the presidential race and not trying to meddle in down-ballot contests, the officials said.
“Havana may be, as it has done in previous cycles, trying to curry favor from congressional and subnational politicians that it believes would support its preferred policies,” the senior intelligence official said.
As for Russia’s information operations, Moscow’s “primary focus is on an individual candidate’s stance on Ukraine and further aid to Kyiv,” the official said.
China’s election influence efforts were focused on “tens” of races, with Beijing denigrating particular candidates with a variety of social media and other online activities, the intelligence official added.
Officials also said foreign adversaries are getting more skilled at using Americans to spread their manufactured falsehoods.
“Two methods they use are foreign influence firms or commercial firms, and the other is to use witting and unwitting Americans to launder narratives through authentic U.S. voices,” the intelligence official said. “Fundamentally, we assess that foreign countries calculate that Americans are more likely to believe other Americans compared to content with clear signs of foreign propaganda and thus make their content appear to be coming from others,” the official added.
Officials in Russia, China, Iran and Cuba all deny their governments are trying to interfere with or influence the U.S. election through covert information operations.
Intelligence officials reiterated that Russia’s disinformation campaign is directed at undermining Vice President Kamala Harris and her fellow Democrats as Moscow seeks to undercut Western support for Ukraine. And officials say Iran’s influence efforts are aimed at denigrating former President Donald Trump’s candidacy.
Federal authorities last month indicted three Iranians whom they accused of orchestrating the hacking of Trump’s campaign. Stolen information had been offered to Trump’s Democratic opponent, who at the time was still President Joe Biden. But the Biden campaign did not respond to the proffer.
