Russia, China and Iran intend to stoke false election claims, officials warn

WASHINGTON — Foreign efforts to undermine American democracy will continue after Election Day, U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, with covert influence campaigns focused on questioning the validity of election results after polls close.

Adversaries believe that the possibility of a close presidential race and contested control of the Senate and House of Representatives offer opportunities to undermine trust in the election’s integrity, the officials said as part of an update one month before the vote.

The officials said they were worried about foreign adversaries amplifying domestic concerns about voting irregularities, as well as manufacturing their own allegations. After the 2020 vote, Donald Trump’s campaign made false allegations about voting irregularities, and he and his supporters have already advanced similar claims before this year’s vote, many of them echoed by Russian state media or Kremlin-friendly organizations.

The intelligence community “expects foreign influence actors to continue their campaigns by calling into question the validity of the election’s results after the polls close,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote in an update on election threats. “They will likely take advantage of such an opportunity to use similar tactics in a post-election period to undermine trust in the integrity of the election, election processes and further exacerbate divisions among Americans.”

Russia and Iran are focused on the presidential vote, though on opposite sides, with the Russians favoring Trump and the Iranians favoring Vice President Kamala Harris.

The officials said that a wider variety of countries were also trying to sway congressional races, including Russia, Cuba and China. The officials said China had already interfered in “tens” of races but did not favor either party. Instead, China’s efforts focused on undermining candidates who have been particularly vocal in their support of Taiwan.

The officials said Cuba had “almost certainly” considered influence efforts on specific candidates, but they did not make clear whether any operations had taken place so far this year. Cuba is focused on the U.S. economic embargo and in past elections has aimed its influence operations at the Latin American community, both the Cuban diaspora specifically and Spanish speakers in general.

Russia has also not focused on party affiliation in congressional races, working instead to support candidates skeptical of aid to Ukraine — many, though not all, of them Republicans. Iran, the officials said, is not focused on congressional races but has previously created websites threatening election officials.

Intelligence officials have been offering regular updates in recent months to journalists, local officials and lawmakers. They have tracked efforts by Iran and Russia to influence the presidential vote. Lawmakers said the final weeks of the election cycle, and the immediate days after the vote, would be some of the most fraught times, with foreign powers stepping up their efforts to sow dissent and undercut the public’s confidence in the outcome.

Administration officials have said that foreign powers realize it is very difficult to hack voting systems and change the count, especially given the hyperlocal nature of voting in the United States. But even if they cannot change actual votes, they can spread messages that suggest the process was flawed.

Officials said they called such efforts “perception hacking”: Even when an adversary cannot change the vote, it can spread false narratives that systems were hacked and cannot be trusted.

The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency created a public service announcement last month designed to warn the public that foreign governments might try to spread false allegations that a ransomware attack or other hacking disruption could cause votes not to be counted.

One CISA official said Monday that some of the tactics foreign adversaries had used to spread false narratives could be repeated this fall.

On Sunday, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., told CBS News that a significant portion of political content seen by Americans on social media was of foreign origin, material made to look as though it was coming from Americans.

“There is a very reasonable chance — I would put it in the 20 to 30% range — that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.

The officials on Monday declined to comment on Kelly’s estimate, but they said foreign influence efforts were often made to look as if they came from “fellow Americans.” Foreign adversaries, one of the officials said, are getting better at “hiding their hands” and posing as Americans.

Foreign powers, particularly Russia, have used Americans — both witting and unwitting — to spread disinformation.

Last month, the Justice Department accused Russia of covertly spending $10 million to spread Kremlin-friendly messages through influential conservative commentators on Tenet Media, an outlet created only last year.

Russia has also turned to a network of Americans in Moscow and elsewhere to amplify narratives generated by companies contracted by the Kremlin to create fake videos spread through fake news outlets or inauthentic accounts on social media platforms. They include John Mark Dougan, a former deputy sheriff in Florida who has been linked to scores of outlets using artificial intelligence tools to create articles.

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Iran has adopted a similar tactic. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies has identified at least 19 websites that Iran has used to spread disinformation through what appear to be American news outlets. Although intelligence officials say Iran has sought to support Harris’ campaign, the fake outlets appeal to would-be voters across the political spectrum.

One calling itself Savannah Time recently published a lengthy article purporting to have been written by Mike Rogers, the former Republican congressman from Michigan who is running for the Senate.

The article, which appeared to have been written by AI based on an interview Rogers gave last month, suggested that election fraud was rampant but that Republicans would win by large enough margins to make the matter moot. Rogers’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the article.

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Max Lesser, a senior analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, said that greater awareness of foreign influence operations had helped blunt some of their impact but that attacks on the American electoral system remained a vulnerability.

“America’s adversaries — specifically China, Russia and Iran — are seeking to cast doubt on the very value of democratic processes,” Lesser wrote in a recent report, “because America’s most enduring asset is the strength of its democracy.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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