The US electoral system has safeguards

Authors: DAVID KLEPPER and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY

WASHINGTON (AP) — It wouldn’t be easy to hack a local U.S. election system and secretly change votes on a scale massive enough to change the outcome of a 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.