Foreign Powers Intensify Election Interference in 2024

On 12 Novem­ber 2024, NPR report­ed that the 2024 U.S. elec­tions faced unprece­dent­ed for­eign inter­fer­ence attempts from Rus­sia, Iran, and Chi­na. The arti­cle begins:

Vot­ers line up to cast their bal­lots on Nov. 5, 2024 in Austell, Geor­gia. Intel­li­gence offi­cials and researchers say Rus­sia, Iran, and Chi­na tried to influ­ence Amer­i­cans in this year’s elec­tion. But there’s no indi­ca­tion so far their efforts swayed results.The final stretch of the 2024 elec­tion was marked by a series of increas­ing­ly brazen attempts to influ­ence vot­ers and dis­rupt polling places. U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cials and researchers believe Rus­sia and oth­er for­eign pow­ers were behind the efforts. On Elec­tion Day itself, hoax bomb threats were sent to polling loca­tions in Geor­gia, Penn­syl­va­nia, Michi­gan, Wis­con­sin and the Nava­jo Nation in Ari­zona. The FBI says that many of the bomb threats “appear to orig­i­nate from Russ­ian email domains,” which NPR con­firmed after review­ing an email sent to Geor­gia loca­tions Bomb threats were called in to polling places in mul­ti­ple states; some coun­ties extend­ed hours No bombs were found at any of those loca­tions and there’s no indi­ca­tion that the delays they caused in vot­ing swayed the elec­tion results. But those threats were part of a broad­er pat­tern, said Gra­ham Brook­ie, a senior direc­tor at the Atlantic Coun­cil’s DFRLab.

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Key Points:

1. Rus­sia employed var­i­ous tac­tics, includ­ing hir­ing U.S. influ­encers and cre­at­ing fake news web­sites to spread disinformation.
2. Iran tar­get­ed Trump’s cam­paign, leak­ing doc­u­ments and alleged­ly attempt­ing an assas­si­na­tion, mark­ing an esca­la­tion in tactics.
3. Chi­na focused on down-bal­lot races, post­ing neg­a­tive con­tent about anti-Chi­na can­di­dates to sway local elections.
4.  These efforts aim at long-term strate­gic goals beyond sin­gle elec