How Iran, Russia and other nations try to influence US elections

American democracy facing 'existential crisis' in 2024, which foreign agencies are happy to exploit

When it comes to foreign election interference, the US has historically been the one to tamper rather than be tampered with. AP

The FBI and other US intelligence agencies this week officially blamed Iran for a recent hack on Donald Trump's presidential campaign, which prompted fears of attempts by foreign actors to influence the November elections.

“Iran has … demonstrated a long-standing interest in exploiting societal tensions through various means, including through the use of cyber operations to attempt to gain access to sensitive information related to US elections,” the agencies said in a statement.

Tehran has denied involvement.

When it comes to foreign interference, the US has historically been the one to tamper rather than be tampered with: from assassinations to covert advertising campaigns, the US has frequently tried to influence political outcomes in countries around the world.

But foreign actors have become increasingly involved in trying to influence US elections – and this year is no different.

An Iranian hack job?

“Iran has always been a significant actor on the stage,” Philip Lieberman, founder and president of Analog Informatics and a noted cybersecurity expert, told The National.

“There have been public examples of them exerting their capabilities worldwide on anybody that displeases them. They're competent at this.

"The thing is that the tools themselves for doing these attacks are available on the dark net and are readily available to anybody with money.”

Under Mr Trump's administration in January 2020, the US carried out a strike in Baghdad that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force leader Qassem Suleimani. Iran has vowed revenge, but insisted it will pursue justice through legal action.

After the hack of his campaign, Mr Trump blamed Iran but claimed that the hackers had stolen only “publicly available information” from “one of our many websites”. It is still unclear what documents were taken.

Although the FBI has declared Iran responsible for the hack, there is not much that can be done in terms of punishing the attackers.

“Even if they investigate it and the criminal is offshore, they don't have the ability to reach out and deal with it, and so it begins to drop into the State Department's purview, depending on the size of it, of the incursion and its political implications,” Mr Lieberman told The National.

“There's a certain fundamental under US law: a citizen cannot take action against their attacker, because that would be a declaration of war – and in fact, warfare against another country.

"So the FBI becomes the spokesperson for the nature of the attack and its implications, and briefs the president as to what action they believe should be taken.”

US intelligence agencies have repeatedly warned of Iranian attempts to influence elections.

“Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions, as we have seen them do in prior election cycles,” Avril Haines, director of National Intelligence, told a Senate hearing this year.

“They continue to adapt their cyber and influence activities, using social media platforms, issuing threats and disseminating disinformation. It is likely they will continue to rely on their intelligence services in these efforts and Iran-based online influencers to promote their narratives.”

The lies that blind

But high-stakes hacks of political campaigns is only part of a much bigger picture.

Foreign actors looking to influence US elections aim to “pollute the environment” so Americans can be confused about matters ranging from how to submit mail-in ballots to politicians' connections with shadowy organisations intent on world domination.

While everyone is susceptible to disinformation, people on the extreme ends of the political spectrum are more likely to buy into false information, be it intentionally false (disinformation) or unintentionally (misinformation).

And the issues of 2024 are much more significant that those of previous elections.

Sarah Oates, a professor at the University of Maryland whose current research focuses on Russian political influence in the US, told The National that many voters have come to feel “unmoored” when it comes to getting reliable information.

“Politicians lie all the time,” Ms Oates said. "Trump was quite extraordinary in that he deliberately uses disinformation as part of his political process and he was sort of the first US president to do that.”

She said Mr Trump's essential undermining of several US institutions, including the media, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention during the Covid-19 pandemic and more recently the Justice Department, has affected how Americans view the validity of information.

And foreign actors looking to influence elections are taking advantage of this atmosphere of uncertainty.

Marek Posard, as sociologist at the Rand Corporation, a Washington-based think tank, told The National that because the “cost of entry” is so low, many countries and actors engage in election influence operations.

“There are certain issues surrounding contentious topics that they can amplify and twist, and the issue is, it's hard to figure out who's doing it,” Mr Posard said.

Ms Oates, author of the book Seeing Red: Russian Propaganda and American News, said: “We're not really dealing with electoral disinformation or propaganda in the normal way in 2024.

“We're actually dealing with an existential crisis about democracy … 2024 is not about who wins or loses, it's about whether the system holds together.”

Democratising the undermining of democracy

Disinformation can be spread in a variety of ways – through videos, news articles and social media posts.

“Social media is essentially the cheap pipeline to do this, in any way,” Mr Posard said. “We've democratised the undermining of democracy with social media, so you can pump out targeted content and lots of different ways on lots of different mediums simultaneously.”

Foreign actors aim to exploit existing fault lines in American society – such as race and foreign policy – to cause greater division.

The aim, Mr Posard said, is to increase divisions and “muddy the waters” to drive people to extremes.

Mr Posard was part of a team analysing the threat of foreign election interference in the 2020 race to become California's governor.

“We found pretty convincing evidence, for example, that Russia was targeting both the right and the left simultaneously, and so they would try to get on both sides of the aisle,” he said.

But it is hard to ignore highly influential people who are either intentionally using disinformation or have been duped into spreading it.

Ms Oates says that some politicians – especially Trump-supporting Republicans – are repeating and amplifying Russian talking points, especially with regard to Ukraine.

“Russia has these grand narratives … that they want to push out in the world,” she said– one of them being that Nato is “out to destroy Russia”.

“I think [President Vladimir] Putin and the Russians are just gleeful at the way in which Trump has become a conduit for their propaganda right into the heart of American politics.”

Mr Lieberman said that “it is war all the time” in the cyber world – and all governments are involved.

“All governments influence all elections in all other countries in the cyber realm, that's just reality,” he said.

“All countries use their cyber tools in order to promote their agendas. And that's always been the case. The issue is to what degree and how effective they are.”

He said they are generally not all that effective – “but generally speaking, it's ubiquitous”.