Foreign influence campaigns and US elections, explained

This appeared in The Millennial Source

A recent US assessment determined there was no evidence that any foreign actors actively interfered in the election to change or erase votes or compromise the voting process.

The release of an assessment by the United States National Intelligence Council on March 10 stated that both Russia and Iran were actively engaged in influence campaigns during the 2020 election. Building on its efforts from the 2016 election, Russia’s campaign was reportedly more involved than Iran’s, but less impactful and targeted this time around.

There are many valuable details in the report, which also revealed that China considered but ultimately opted against enacting its own influence campaign. Most importantly for concerns of election security, the assessment determined there was no evidence that any foreign actors actively interfered in the election to change or erase votes or compromise the voting process.

However, perhaps the main indirect take-away from the assessment is that digital efforts by foreign powers to influence US elections are the new normal. They are relatively cheap to engage in and can have ripple effects well beyond a single election. As such, election officials and politicians will have to stay vigilant against cyberoperations to…