The US electoral system is secure. But human nature is delicate

WASHINGTON – It wouldn’t be easy to hack a local U.S. election system and secretly change votes on a massive enough scale to change the outcome of the presidential race it would be impossibleelection officials say, thanks to decentralized systems, paper documentation of nearly all ballots, exhaustive reviews, due process and decades of work by U.S. election officials, volunteers and citizens.

But foreign actors and domestic extremist groups want to interfere elections next week they can focus on a much weaker link: voters’ perceptions and emotions. Those who want to undermine confidence in American democracy do not have to change any vote if they can convince enough Americans don’t trust the result.

This is a possible scenario particularly affecting intelligence analysts and officials tasked with protecting America’s elections: an adversary tries to hack a state or local election system, then releases a document – perhaps a fake or even publicly available material – and suggests that it is evidence of vote fraud.

Or a video was created of someone allegedly hacking into a ballot scanner, voting machine or state voter registration system. But it didn’t happen and it wouldn’t be true.

This is called a perception hack and may or may not involve an actual breach of voting systems, but it apparently did. In some cases, minor information may be stolen – enough to make the video appear authentic – but this does not affect the number of votes cast. A related threat includes fake footage purporting to show election workers destroying ballots.

In both cases, the goal is the same: to generate confusion, distrust AND fear.

In recent years, governments at all levels have worked to strengthen electoral infrastructure. However, the human brain remains difficult to defend.

“I think it’s almost certain that this will happen,” said former CIA political analyst Adam Darrah, discussing the risk of perception hacks.

Darrah, now vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm ZeroFox, said misleading people into thinking election systems are vulnerable is much easier than actually hacking them. “It’s a way to create panic. We are very technically resistant. Our emotional resilience and hypersensitivity are still a challenge.”

Narrow margins of victory or delays in counting votes could increase the risk that a perception hack could deceive large numbers of voters, further polarizing the electorate, increasing the risk of political violence and potentially complicating the transfer of power in January.

Intelligence officials warned that last week Russia AND Iran may consider encouraging violent protests in the USA after the elections. The country’s intelligence community and private analysts agree on this Kremlin supports former president Donald TrumpMoscow’s ultimate goal is divide Americans and undermine the US support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.

America’s opponents focus on disinformation officials say that’s in part because they understand the country’s election infrastructure is too secure to be hacked.

Despite intelligence officials’ findings, both Russia and Iran have rejected claims that they were trying to influence the U.S. election.

“We have never interfered, we do not interfere and we have no intention of interfering,” a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Even without the involvement of a foreign power, isolated stories about long lines at the ballot boxes, mixed-up ballots or other irregularities can be taken as evidence that elections cannot be trusted.

This happened in 2020, when Trump amplified claims of election problems, helping to bring about January 6, 2021attack on the US Capitol by his supporters trying to disrupt the certification of the election.

The former Republican president spent months preparing the ground to challenge this year’s election results if he lost. He also worked to convince his supporters that he could only lose if Democrats cheated, urging them to secure a victory “too big to fake.”

“They are cheating,” Trump said last month at a rally in Michigan. “The only way we will lose is because they cheat. They cheat like hell.

As in 2020, there will likely be days immediately after the election the most criticalas results are announced i The Americans reached the end disputed breed.

This is when authoritarian nations or domestic anti-democratic groups will want to rise up distrust trying to galvanize people into action, said Paul Barrett, a law professor at New York University who studies online discourse and polarization.

“They are happy that Americans are at the throats of other Americans,” Barrett said. “We saw it in 2021 and I have great concern that we will see it happen again.”

In response, national security officials and election officials across the country did so decided to debunk the disinformation and quickly refute the rumors. Top intelligence officials held multiple briefings describing foreign threats, and cybersecurity and election officials explained why election systems are secure.

Last week, a video purporting to show someone destroying mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania began spreading on social media. Bipartisan Bucks County Election Officials he quickly denied the videoand intelligence officers he linked it to the Russian campaign behind other videos aimed at slandering the vice president Kamala HarrisDemocratic candidate and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

“This video was debunked quite quickly by multiple news outlets, and I know Bucks County immediately responded and explained why it was a fake and why voters should have confidence,” said Kim Wyman, a former Washington state secretary of state who also worked at the Agency for . Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security.

“But the problem is that now it exists there,” she said. “We know it will be distributed between now and probably Inauguration Day.”

Americans can prevent a successful perception hack by not further spreading voter fraud. Disinformation experts urge voters to use various sources of information, including: skeptical of anonymous claims on social media and ask your state and local officials for the facts.

In the days after the vote ends, uncertainty and emotion will mount – exactly the conditions that foreign adversaries and domestic extremists need to undermine confidence.

“Our foreign adversaries seek to attack our democratic process to advance their own agendas, and we need the help of all Americans to prevent them from succeeding,” said Cait Conley, senior advisor to CISA. “Americans should have confidence that their votes will be counted as cast. They should also know that our foreign adversaries will try to tell them otherwise.”

“We encourage everyone to remain vigilant, verify the information they receive and rely on trusted sources such as state and local election officials,” she added.

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Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.