‘Russia is most active threat’: Top US agencies warn of foreign interference on Election Day

Three US intelligence agencies has warned of foreign interference on the Election Day and dubbed Russia as “most active threat”.

In the 2024 US presidential election, foreign interference has emerged as the major issue. Foreign adversaries like Russia and Iran are capitalising on internal faultlines and doubts sown by Republican candidate Donald Trump about the US electoral system to spread disinformation, stoke tensions, trigger violence, and destabilise the United States.

In a joint statement on the eve of the Election Day, the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said that foreign adversaries are conducting “influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans” and such attacks are expected to rise on and in the aftermath of Election Day.

The US intelligence community expects such interference to focus on swing states on the Election Day and in coming days as ballots are counted.

‘Russian efforts risk inciting violence’

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Foreign influence operations, particularly by Russia, are aimed at instilling fears and doubts regarding elections and inciting violence, said the ODNI, FBI, and CISA in the joint statement.

Russian influence operations are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each-other on partisan lines, said the statement.

“These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials. We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close,” read the statement.

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To a lesser extent, Iran has also interfered in the US election. Previously, Iran has been blamed for hacking the Trump campaign. Similarly, China has also been reported to have targeted the Trump campaign , mounting cyber-attacks on phones of Trump and his running mate JD Vance.

Iran remains a “significant” threat to the US elections and Iranian influence actors “may also seek to create fake media content intended to suppress voting or stoke violence, as they have done in past election cycles”, according to the three agencies.

Threats would not end with Election Day

While foreign interference is aimed at swaying voters towards their favoured candidate in the run-up to the Election Day, election interference after voting is set to aimed to stoking violence and other disturbances by tapping into the internal faultlines and Trump’s disinformation regarding election integrity and expected rejection of the result in case he loses.

After Election Day, US adversaries like Russia and Iran “will likely seek to stoke concerns of interference or fraud regardless of evidence, could push for large-scale protests or demonstrations, and even violence”, according to US intelligence officials cited by Washington Examiner.

“The [intelligence community] assesses that foreign actors are highly likely to conduct information operations in the period after voting ends, to create uncertainty and try to undermine the legitimacy of the election process. Iran and Russia are probably willing to at least consider tactics that would contribute to such violence,” said an official with ODNI, as per The Examiner.

So far, Russian disinformation campaign has included fake videos and rumours, such as fake videos of Haitians illegally voting in elections ballots, ballots being destroyed in swing state of Pennsylvania, officials in another battleground state of Arizona falsifying ballots in favour of Harris, and a false post about officials in swing states launching cyber-attacks and stuffing ballots.