This year’s US election cycle was marked by increasingly brazen attempts by foreign actors to interfere and influence voters. Iran orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump and successfully accessed documents from his campaign and leaked them to the media. Russia created dozens of websites that masqueraded as legitimate US news outlets and funneled money to a Tennessee-based company that contracted American media personalities to spread Kremlin talking points. Finally, the People’s Republic of China sought to sway down-ballot races by using bot accounts to post negative content about congressional candidates it deemed anti-China.
Foreign interference has undoubtedly evolved, becoming more sophisticated and extensive, since Russia’s sweeping operation in 2016. But so have the US government’s strategies to expose, counter, and mitigate these attacks. Despite widespread efforts by foreign actors to interfere in this year’s election, it remained secure and ran smoothly. This success can be attributed in part to the federal government increasingly prioritizing the issue and building on lessons learned from the 2016 and 2020 election cycles to improve coordination across government and with the states and using more instruments of power to unmask and disrupt foreign interference operations.
Early Flagging and Swift Debunking
The federal government made a more concerted effort to alert the public of foreign influence efforts in the months leading up to this year’s election, often in real time. In May, at a hearing of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, officials from the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) outlined the foreign threats they identified ahead of the election and how their respective agencies were working to counter them. To increase transparency about evolving foreign threats, ODNI also issued regular election security updates, including 100 days, 45 days, 30 days, and 15 days before the election. These assessments summarized predominant threat actors and their overarching goals and tactics.
In the final days of voting, intelligence officials also took the unprecedented step of debunking false content about the election in real time. In joint statements, ODNI, FBI, and CISA flagged two videos “manufactured and amplified” by Russia that purported to show election fraud in swing states. The first falsely depicted ballots being destroyed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania; the second showed a Haitian immigrant claiming he would vote at least twice in Georgia for Vice President Kamala Harris. Both videos were also quickly and publicly debunked by local and state officials, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. On Election Day, the FBI also announced that it had been made aware of three fake videos and doctored press releases using the Bureau’s name and insignia to promote false narratives around the election, including encouraging people to “vote remotely” because of a high terror threat. While the agency did not attribute them to a nation state, researchers later also attributed them to Russia.
Using the Full Arsenal of Legal Tactics to Counter Operations
This year, the federal government adopted a more assertive approach—employing a wider range of legal tools—to call out and take down malign foreign threats. In September, the Biden administration announced a sweeping set of actions to disrupt a major Russian government-backed effort to influence the 2024 presidential election, including the seizure of 32 website domains connected to Russia’s “Doppelgänger” information manipulation campaign, criminal charges against two Russian state media employees for funneling almost $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creation company, and sanctions against another 10 individuals and two entities for assisting malign influence efforts. Taken together, these actions represent the government’s most significant public response yet to foreign interference targeting American voters.
The federal government’s public response to Iran’s attempts to undermine Trump’s presidential campaign was just as robust. Days after the election, the DOJ announced criminal charges against a man who had been tasked by an Iranian government official to assassinate Trump; two other associates were also charged for their involvement. In September, the DOJ also indicted three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps for hacking into Trump’s presidential campaign; the charges were coupled with sanctions and rewards for information leading to the accused hackers’ capture.
Bolstering Lines of Communication with State and Election Officials
Following various foreign and domestic election threats in 2016 and 2020, agencies across the federal government made safeguarding the 2024 election a top priority. A primary component of this whole-of-government effort included bolstering lines of communication and collaboration with state and election officials. In preparation for this year’s election, CISA spearheaded federal government efforts to prepare election officials and other key stakeholders for various physical and information threats. This included holding tabletop exercises, helping election offices get a .gov domain, and publishing resources for election officials on topics such as operations security and public communications. The agency also added a new Election Security Advisor position in each of its 10 regions to provide specialized assistance to election officials.
Moreover, for the first time this year, the FBI operated a 24/7 National Election Command Post that ran from November 1st to 9th to ensure the election was safe and secure. The command post—which was staffed with 80 people from more than a dozen agencies—served as a hub for all tips on potential election threats that were received by any of the FBI’s 55 field offices, state and local law enforcement, and election partners. From the command post, the information was assessed, triaged, and shared with key partners, notably election officials. This direct line between the FBI and election officials played a part in ensuring the Election Day was smooth and secure, despite a series of non-credible bomb threats to polling places in at least seven states originating from Russian email domains.
Conclusion
Despite widespread efforts by foreign actors to interfere in the 2024 election, the United States learned from past elections and made significant strides to defend against foreign threats. While election season has come to an end, foreign adversaries will continue to refine their strategies and techniques to exploit societal divisions and undermine American democracy. The incoming administration needs to preserve, if not bolster, its commitment to building resilience against foreign interference.
The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone.
