Foreign adversaries could try to undermine the results after the vote

WASHINGTON — Russian groups and other foreign adversaries have unleashed a extensive disinformation campaign to undermine confidence in the US election, but there is no evidence that their efforts affected the outcome, federal officials said Monday.

However, officials remain concerned that foreign adversaries will watch the weeks after the election until they are certified by Congress on January 6 as an opportunity to stoke political discord in the United States.

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said her organization would conduct regular updates throughout Tuesday to inform the public about threats to the election.

“We are in an election cycle with an unprecedented amount of disinformation, including disinformation that our foreign adversaries are aggressively spreading and amplifying on a larger scale than ever before,” he said.

The agency has activated its election operations center to monitor potential threats to the voting infrastructure Easterly said.

In recent weeks, agency officials have monitored attacks on ballot boxes and election-related websites, as well as Russia’s disinformation campaigns.

But so far, Easterly said, “we see no evidence of activity that has the potential to materially impact the outcome of the presidential election.”

At the beginning of the election cycle, US intelligence agencies concluded that the hyperlocal nature of the American voting system had deterred foreign adversaries from attempting to manipulate the electoral infrastructure to change the results.

But several adversaries, including Russia and Iran, had concluded they could potentially influence the vote. spreading falsehoods on the candidates and undermining confidence in the election.

On Monday, videos circulated falsely claiming to be from CBS News y CNN with the aim of stoking fears that the election results were being manipulated.

Both networks quickly denounced those efforts as disingenuous.

The officials of the cybersecurity agency They said they were only widely aware of the made-up videos, but they had been warning about such fake videos for weeks.

“We know we can expect more of this tomorrow, all day tomorrow and in the days after the election,” Easterly said.

U.S. officials said they did not immediately know where the videos purporting to be from CBS and CNN originated.

But intelligence agencies have pointed to other videos in recent days such as work of the Russians.

Another Russian fabrication involved a man alleged to be a former assistant to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who claimed he had resigned due to evidence of voter fraud in the state.

He appeared in an interview with Mira Terada, director of a Russian organization, the Foundation for Battle against injustice, which has been linked to Russia and that country’s intelligence agencies.

In the interview, the man’s face was obscured and the voice was “audio generated by artificial intelligence,” according to NewsGuarda company that has been tracking election misinformation.

A Terada post on the social platform “.

Cait Conley, one of Easterly’s top advisers, said that no matter who won on Tuesday or how quickly the election results were known, foreign powers would likely try to sow doubts after the vote.

“These efforts to discredit the process and undermine trust and stoke partisan discord will likely continue not only on Election Day and in the days afterward as the certification process continues, but really until January 6,” he said.

Intelligence officials have said Russia favors the former president Donald Trump about the vice president Kamala Harris.

His skepticism about offering military support to Ukraine, which Russia invaded nearly three years ago, and his promise to force peace talks have raised the vote stakes for Russia, officials say.

Trump supporters have discussed challenging the certification process in several states, and election and intelligence officials say Russia and other adversaries could work to amplify those efforts.

Conley said adversaries saw the certification process as an opportunity to undermine trust and stoke discord in the United States.