Global Gameplan: How Foreign Powers are Shaping U.S. Election Outcomes.
In the lead-up to each U.S. Presidential election, the attention of both domestic and international audiences turns to the candidates, policies, and potential global impacts of the vote. In recent years, the question of foreign interference in U.S. elections has gained particular urgency, raising concerns about how external powers might affect the democratic process. This potential influence raises complex questions about national security, public trust, and the integrity of U.S. electoral outcomes.
Foreign influence in elections is neither new nor unique to the United States. However, digital tools, social media, and advanced data-driven techniques have given external players unprecedented potential to shape public opinion and disrupt electoral processes. Knowing, therefore, the motivations, methods, and risks associated with foreign interference is very important to protect the democratic principles underlying the U.S. electoral system.
The U.S. has become an object of foreign interest in manipulating the policy directions, which has favored their national interest for many years. Recently, propaganda wars and incidences of cyber espionage portray the extent to which foreign powers have been targeting the United States for many decades. For instance, Russian interference made it an issue at the national level in 2016 since intelligence reports and social media analyses mirrored that Russian operatives indeed mounted extensive misinformation campaigns aimed at polarizing American voters.
Indeed, foreign influence tactics have changed over the decades from traditional means, including direct propaganda and diplomatic pressure to sophisticated cyber operations and disinformation. The internet has further made it easier for external actors to reach a myriad number of people, targeting all manners of groups based on such groups’ interests, demographic status, and political allegiance. The evolution of more modern digital tools has served to increase the precision with which foreign actors can influence vote choice, thereby making matters extremely complex for modern democracies.
Today, most foreign actors influence the U.S. elections. The top three list includes Russia, China, and Iran, which attempted in every way possible to manipulate public opinion toward the eventual outcome of the election. Each of these has its reasons and tools to influence, whether it is an advancement of a narrative fitting with their foreign policy interest or trying to delegitimize U.S. democratic institutions.
Misinformation campaigns are one of the most effective forms of interference, and probably the most common. The campaigns are usually conducted using social media to spread false information, often through the guise of apparently legitimate news sources or fake accounts pretending to be U.S. citizens. According to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, hundreds of such accounts are connected to foreign actors, who have spread exaggerated or fabricated content in an effort to fuel fear or foment division within American society.
There are cyber-attacks, where foreign powers conduct attacks to breach campaign databases, government systems as well as election infrastructure. The cases include Russian-affiliated hackers who have been blamed for targeting U.S. voter databases and stealing sensitive information. These activities expose dangers not only to the personal privacy of data but also risk the very integrity of elections.
International organizations have also been accused of diverting indirect contributions to political action committees and other lobbying groups. While it is illegal for foreign governments to contribute directly to American elections, some foreign governments tried to exert their influence indirectly: money was channeled through organizations that shared their aims.
Foreign interference impacts American voters so profoundly— from the way people view the candidates to how much trust exists in the process. As a Pew Research Center study reports, “64 percent of Americans consider spreading false information about the election a major problem,” and many feel that foreign interference is a major “cause of that problem.”.
Social media is a massive facilitator of amplifying foreign narratives, and misinformation spreads like wildfire across platforms. The algorithmic structures of these platforms often promote content based on engagement, which inadvertently amplifies inflammatory or divisive narratives. This subtly shapes public opinion by instilling fear, skepticism, or distrust in certain candidates or institutions.
Continued misinformation exposure can lead to such phenomenon as the “illusory truth effect,” a sort of psychological impact when people start believing incorrect things after frequent exposure although people initially recognized them to be false.
In response to the increasing menace of foreign election interference, the U.S. has employed numerous methods to enhance electoral security. These agencies include the FBI, DHS, and CISA, which have initiated programs that focus on monitoring and countering foreign influence operations.
The DHS has also significantly fortified the cyberdefenses protecting critical electoral infrastructure, and worked with state officials and others to protect all voter registration databases, voting machines, and tally systems used in administering elections. Such defenses and resources are through grants of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission allocated to States.
There are such provisions as the Honest Ads Act and the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which will oblige online political ads from being bought by foreign elements targeting U.S. voters without disclosing this to oneself. Federal agencies organize public education campaigns to orient voters on how to discern between falsehood and fact. CISA’s “Rumor Control” page features a real-time fact-checking platform that serves as an antidote to the misinformation being spread on matters to do with elections.
The implications of foreign interference sustained in the U.S. elections are far-reaching by touching on international political affairs dynamics.
If such interference continues, it may encourage the interfering nations to continue so or inspire adversarial forces in other regions to repeat it in other democracies, and the U.S., being one of the global significant democracies, also happens to set a standard in this regard; accordingly, the credibility of democratic values established will depend on the integrity of the election system. In the long term, foreign interference might destabilize public trust in democratic systems, making democratic societies more polarized and weakening political consensus.
Over time, erosion of trust may extend from affecting domestic stability to challenging the United States’ relationship with its allies and its status on the world stage. Such efforts to counter foreign influence that threatens democratic stability in multiple ways will require strong, cooperative frameworks for government, private-sector technology companies, and civil society organizations.
This foreign interference in U.S. elections poses an immediate and long-term threat. Protecting the electoral process is important not only for the health of American democracy but for democratic values around the world. The tools of influence and manipulation evolve, and so too must the measures to counter them, in a constant commitment to transparency, security, and public trust in the democratic process.
