The US electoral system has guarantees

DAVID KLEPPER and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hacking local election systems in the United States will not be easy, and secretly changing vote results on a large enough scale to change the outcome of a presidential race will be impossible, election officials said, thanks to decentralized systems. , paper records of nearly every ballot, comprehensive reviews, due process and decades of work by America’s election officials, volunteers and citizens.

But foreign actors and domestic extremist groups looking to interfere in next week’s elections may be targeting a much weaker link: voters’ perceptions and emotions. Those intent on undermining trust in U.S. democracy won’t have to change their votes if they can convince enough Americans to distrust the results of the vote.

It’s a possible scenario that particularly concerns intelligence analysts and officials tasked with protecting America’s elections: An adversary attempts to hack a state or local election system, then releases a document—possibly fake or even publicly available material—and purports to be evidence. about vote fraud.

Or a video is created that shows someone allegedly hacking into a ballot scanner, voting machine, or government voter registration system. But this did not happen, and it would not be true.

This is called perception hacking, which may or may not involve actually disrupting voting systems, but is done to make it appear as if it happened. In some cases, minor information may be stolen—enough to make the video appear legitimate—but this does not change the vote. A related threat involves fake footage purporting to show election workers destroying ballots.

In any case, the goal is the same: to cause confusion, mistrust and fear.

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

“I think it’s almost certainly going to happen,” said former CIA political analyst Adam Darrah, discussing the risk of perception hacking.

Darrah, now vice president of intelligence at cybersecurity company ZeroFox, says misleading people into thinking election systems are vulnerable is much easier than actually hacking them. “This is a way to cause panic. We are very technically sound. Our emotional stability, our hypersensitivity, is still a problem.”

Small margins of victory or delays in vote counting could raise the risk that perception hacking 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 last week that Russia and Iran could consider encouraging violent protests in the US after the election. The national intelligence community and private analysts agree that while the Kremlin supports former President Donald Trump, Moscow’s ultimate goal is to divide Americans and undermine U.S. support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.