Janusz Bugajski: RUSSIA PREPARING FOR US ELECTIONS

Evidence is growing that Moscow is preparing a massive intervention in the 2020 US presidential election campaign. It is uncertain which candidate Moscow will ultimately favor, but the primary objective will be to foster divisions in American society and distrust in the democratic process.

Since the last US presidential elections, the Kremlin has developed novel methods and located new inroads to achieve its goals. It will focus on at least four offensive opportunities: deep fake disinformation, recruiting influencers, hacking election lists, and tampering with election results.

In addition to the customary fraudulent conspiracy theories that Russian agents promulgate on social networks, they now have access to deep fake software. This technology enables the dissemination of fabricated or altered video online that looks astonishingly real. Using this tool on a mass scale will enable propagandists and trolls to create new realities for voters and convince them that the forgeries are reality.

Deep fake visual and aural disinformation will enable a new level of mind manipulation and the reinforcement of existing prejudices. It will be difficult to convince some consumers that the video is fabricated if there is little trust in the government or the mainstream media. And deep fakes will also work in reverse, where authentic videos can be questioned as fake in order to discredit the source. The technology will serve to further divide and polarize voters and increase distrust of politicians and journalists.

A second effective way of invading the US elections is by recruiting an army of influencers who understand the American audience and know where disinformation and agitation can best penetrate. These social network activists can be persuaded or paid to provide information on audiences and channels, specify what messages resonate with citizens, and use their extensive contacts to spread disinformation on a daily basis.

An expanding human virus in the service of Russian intelligence can penetrate various layers of American society. Despite the fact that Facebook has closed down over two billion fake accounts in the past two years, the number of fake media outlets continues to grow. This indicates that Kremlin services adapt quickly by using real people instead of fake accounts to spread disinformation.

Distributors of fake conspiracies can exploit tensions among different groups to create havoc during the election campaign. This includes widening rifts between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, younger and older generations, urban and rural areas, and higher and lower-income brackets. Disinformation can also generate conflicts between majorities and various religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities.

A third and increasingly worrying prospect in the new election campaign is the hacking of ballot lists. A just released US Senate report concludes that Russian intelligence services hacked into America’s election infrastructure in 2016 and continue to probe the network as the 2020 campaign begins. Russian military officers are studying the decentralized election systems to identify the weakest links in preparation for a possible major attack before November 2020. This could involve deleting or disqualifying selected voters to affect a local result.

The Senate report concludes that GRU (Russian military intelligence) hackers carried out cyber reconnaissance missions across all fifty states. Although investigators found no evidence that voter registry files were modified, it seems likely that Moscow’s agents were preparing for a future operation. Russian cyberactors were in a strong position to change voter data inside an Illinois database and in several Florida districts.

A fourth and related US election weakness is the prospect of result tampering, in which the tallies of votes are altered and the result is falsified. A sophisticated hacker could target specific districts where margins between candidates are already small as was the case in several states in 2016. Even disenfranchising a small percentage of voters could have an enormous impact on the election results.

Tampering with vote numbers, particularly if this is exposed, can also delegitimize the election in the eyes of many voters. And if trust in the election system is lost then the credibility of the entire democratic system comes under question and demagogues and populists will benefit.

The FBI and other agencies have launched a counterintelligence effort to thwart Russia’s influence operations and cyberhacking in the 2020 elections. FBI agents are investigating whether any US citizens are actively assisting the Russian offensive either through financial incentives or because they have been compromised and blackmailed by Russian services. As Moscow’s attack intensifies America’s defenses will be seriously tested.