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Securing America's Electoral Systems

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Securing America's Electoral Systems SECURING AMERICA’S ELECTORAL SYSTEMS By Matthew Keating INTRODUCTION In the spring 0f 2017, the American public was made aware of the details of the Russian government’s interference with the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, which included the manipulation of online social media accounts, the proliferation of “fake news” websites, and the hacking of major political campaigns, national party organizations, and even voting machine hardware. While there is no evidence that Russia was able to directly manipulate vote counts, the ability of foreign agents to influence American voters through either direct or indirect social and digital manipulation poses a serious A typical electronic threat to the stability and sovereignty of American democracy. voting machine that The issue of election interference was highly politicized for the may be susceptible first two years of the Trump administration. Most recently, the to electronic publishing of the Special Counsel Investigation (or “Mueller Report” interference. as it is commonly known)—which largely exonerated the 2016 Trump Associated Press campaign staff on charges of collusion—may present the most politically viable time in years for Democrats and Republicans to [This is where you come together to address the issue of foreign election interference. will describe the Given the severity of the past and future threats, there is keen image and why it’s interest for the United States House Intelligence Committee to devise relevant for your some kind of solution which would allow both individual states and briefing topic.] the federal government to combat foreign interference ahead of the [Image Source Here upcoming 2020 Presidential elections. HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS EXPLANATION OF THE ISSUE Historical Development On January 6, 2017, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) published an unprecedented report that synthesized analysis from every agency within the American intelligence community, including from the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Department of Homeland Security, about how Russia interfered in the 2016 election, in part by targeting the systems we use to run our elections. The report cited “Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order” as the country’s primary motivation to execute a targeted Election “influence campaign.” Although the United States and Russia have interference can be each engaged in “influence campaigns” in one other’s national either direct elections for decades, the report cited the actions undertaken by manipulation of vote Russia in 2016 as “a significant escalation in directness, level of counts or more activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.” insidious “voter Among other actions, the report highlights the Russian hacking persuasion” through of key political targets and subsequent leaking of the information. fake news, These hacks affected both major US political parties, and the stolen manipulation of information from the hacks galvanized media outlets to spread content, and hacking. propaganda. The report also found that “Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple [...] state or local electoral boards,” although the Department of Homeland Security maintains that the “Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in the final vote tallying process.” Scope of the Problem Electoral Interference: A Tale of Two Nations Although the scale of Russian electoral interference was unprecedented in 2016, the practice of electoral interference goes back decades, and both the US and Russia/Soviet Union have committed it. The United States government—specifically, the CIA— launched persuasion campaigns in Soviet satellite nations for decades. Campaigns distributed posters, pamphlets, mailers, and banners for opposition or capitalist-oriented political parties. Intelligence scholar and former CIA operative Loch Johnson told the New York Times: “We’ve planted false information in foreign newspapers. We’ve even just used what the British call ‘King George’s cavalry’: suitcases of cash.” More recently, in the 2000 Presidential election in Serbia, the United States government funded a successful effort to defeat Slobodan Milosevic, a nationalist politician (who was later convicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes), by providing a Serbian opposition party with American political consultants and 80 © HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS 2020 – REDISTRIBUTION OR REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 2 HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS tons of stickers delivered by a Washington DC based contractor that featured a clenched-fist symbol that read “He’s finished.” While the United States has used traditional covert campaign support as a method of electoral influence, Russia has made the audacious step of utilizing methods of cyberwarfare, hacking, and promulgation of fake internet news as a 21st century adaption of traditional electoral influence. As the DNI report stated, the revolutionary power of the internet and the increasing velocity of the dissemination of information, as well as the vulnerability of state- regulated digital election machines, make the efficacy and impact of electronic or cyber-based interference more serious than in decades past. Misinformation Campaigns Troll farms – In addition to targeting the physical hardware of local election massive government systems, the Russian government has developed an extensive run complexes that infrastructure or “cyber army” of its own to propagate false pay real human beings information vis-à-vis the internet to foreign audiences. The Russian (government government has built and developed intricate troll farms – employees) to create massive government-run complexes that pay real human beings fake social media (Russian government employees) to create fake social media accounts, content, and accounts and false content (e.g. comments on news articles). A comments. figure from the Eurasia Center estimates the Russian government spends over $400 million dollars annually on these troll farms. According to subsequent intelligence reports, the Russian government created millions of fraudulent social media accounts during the 2016 election that promoted attendance at nearby Trump rallies. The Russian government was also found to have funded online advertisements that promoted anti-Hillary rhetoric and fake information. This grand strategy of coordinating organic social accounts with the dissemination of false information has led to the catchall term of “fake news.” Fake news comprises news, stories or hoaxes created deliberately to misinform or deceive readers. These stories Fake news– news, are often created to influence people’s views, push a political stories or hoaxes agenda, or cause confusion, and they can be a profitable business created to deliberately for online publishers. Fake news articles can deceive people by misinform or deceive looking like trusted websites or using similar names or web readers, often to push addresses to reputable news organizations. a certain political In January 2017, Twitter estimated that more than 1.4 million agenda. users had interacted with Russian propaganda or bots that promoted fake news during the 2016 campaign. In 2018 alone, Twitter deleted approximately 200,000 tweets that were found to have stemmed from accounts linked to these Russian troll farms. Many large internet companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google have been working to combat the spread of fake news after © HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS 2020 – REDISTRIBUTION OR REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 3 HARVARD MODEL CONGRESS the DNI report spotlighted their platforms as conduits for Russian propaganda. Similarly, in January 2018, Facebook announced a plan to attempt to highlight "reliable" sources of news whereby users could view the news outlets’ background information, history, and funding sources. While compliance has largely been self-directed by these tech companies, Congress and the Intelligence committee are increasingly looking for ways to codify the regulation and expectations of these tech firms to prevent the distribution of fake news and foreign propaganda. “All Elections Are Local” The United States is unique in that it utilizes a highly decentralized election administration system. The entities responsible for the logistics of running an election, such as The Russian purchasing voting machines, printing voter rolls, and recruiting polls “Internet Research workers, are typically organized at the county, city, or town level. In Agency” in St. general, states are also responsible for certain aspects of elections as Petersburg is widely well, but states may choose to regulate or administer elections using known to be a fake a variety of officials, from the state’s Secretary of State to the news “troll farm” office Lieutenant Governor to an independent Elections Board. location. The result of this irregular, somewhat patchwork system is that Source: Euronews no state administers elections in exactly the same way as another state. Furthermore, there is a deal of variation in election administration even within any given state. Some argue that this decentralized approach serves to promote electoral security; that is, having election hardware, procedures, and voter rolls managed by 50 different states and at countless county and municipal levels makes a centralized attempt at influencing or attacking electoral machines and systems nearly impossible. On the other hand, this system also allows for huge discrepancies in electoral security, funding levels for
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