By Esha Dinesh-
Election is a formal way by which citizens of a country vote to elect their Government. As defined in various dictionaries, meddling means intrusive or unwarranted interference in a particular matter.
Election meddling is a way in which foreign countries interfere in electoral matters of another country to sway the results towards their interest. These foreign electoral interventions by government may either covertly or overtly influence elections.
Free and fair election is a cornerstone in smooth functioning of a democratic country, which is now a target of adversaries.
It’s a pattern which helps these adversaries put pressure on various agencies to adopt, manipulate, and colour their analysis. In cases regarding election meddling, voting is held for namesake and voters are denied of their free will as results are already pre-determined, independent media houses are muzzled, and if any civil society group ask for a close monitoring on election process, it is eventually shut down.
This indeed turns out to be dangerous as there is lack of transparency which leads to a country being unprotected.
It’s also said by many learned scholars that the word meddling does not sound threatening or as a crime. Its meaning in true sense is vague, and it never directs towards a year long coordinated influence campaign to bring discord with a sole intention to help a particular candidate in election. This evidently is the greatest harm brought to democracy in a country.
Election interference not only subverts a citizen’s right to sovereignty and the freedom to elect their desired government, but also undermines democracy and solely benefits dictators.
It violates international conventions to a great extent and sows tension, mistrust, confusion, division, and sense of suspicion in the internal political affairs of a country. It’s a perfect way to deceive citizens of the nation and corrupt electoral process, alter outcomes which is a breach of voters’ will.
It also exacerbates social division and crowds out public’s voice. Election meddling is conducted on the basis of fraud, conspiracy, cyber hacking, obstruction of justice, identity theft, impersonation and disinformation.
Till date, election meddling has occurred in 60 different countries, and as per reports, since 1946 United States is more likely to intervene in elections in Asia, and Russia is more likely to intervene in European elections.
United States has meddled in 81 elections so far from1946 to 2000, and Russia has meddled in 36 elections, followed by Iran, Libya, Venezuela, and other countries.
A report by Canada’s Communications security establishment stated that half of the world’s advanced economies that held elections in the year 2018 faced severe cyber threats and cyber-attacks.
An Assessment from top official warns that foreign powers will use “covert & overt influence measures” to try to sway United States voters, singling out Russia, China, & Iran
Russia’s active interference in US elections 2020
US Intelligence believes that Russia is actively attempting to bend results of elections is favour of Donald Trump. It has been reported that meetings are being held between Trump’s team and Russian officials, and they have been targeting state voter databases, and attempting to amplify false material online.
In the month of September, Republican led Senate panel gave a statement to support the view that Russia wants Trump to win 2020 US elections. William Evanina recently said that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate Joe Biden, another candidate for 2020 elections.
FBI director Christopher Wray confirms that Russia is interfering by a steady stream of misinformation aimed at undermining Biden, and sapping America citizens’ confidence in election process.
However, Trump’s national security adviser has given a statement this week, that he has warned his Russian counterpart that there will be absolutely no tolerance for any interference in the upcoming elections. Interestingly, he forgot to mention that American Intelligence officials and a range of private firma claimed that they already saw evidence of influence operations.
Microsoft also provided similar evidence, followed by Facebook and other social media platforms.
US Department of Homeland Security (DSC) penned down a 26 page “Homeland Threat Assessment” where it is evidently mentioned that Russia is the primary covert influence actor, and purveyor of disinformation & misinformation within homeland.
The assessment lays out Moscow’s primary objective behind the meddling in elections, which is increase its global standing and influence by weakening America domestically.
It points out the consistent efforts put in to sow discord, distract, shape public sentiment and undermine the trust in Western democratic institutions and processes. It clearly states that Russia is using divisive measures to disrupt electoral process, and even a broader effort to divide and destabilize America.
A joint report by CIA, FBI & NSA confirm that there has been interference by Russia in 2016 election. On September 10th, Microsoft alerted Biden’s campaign that certain Russian hackers were trying to access servers of American Communication agency SKDKnickerbocker, which is hired by many democratic candidates.
However, a few days ago, Donald Trump ordered total declassification of documents regarding the alleged Russian interference in 2016 US elections. He described the entire scenario as a hoax.
Donald Trump openly relying more on Russian Intelligence
Donald Trump openly gave a statement that he trust Russian intelligence officials more over US intelligence. Above that, he has been effectively asking all Americans to side with Russian Intelligence services over US intelligence community.
It has also been reported that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, GOP Senators, US lobbyists, and Pro Trump media organisations have been working with the Russian Intelligence agents for a while now, and actively working towards laundering Russian disinformation about Joe Biden.
It has also come to light that Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe is working to spread the word of Russian Intelligence directly.
China attempting to sway voters away from Trump
Mr. Evanina has said that China sees Donald Trump as “unpredictable” and prefers that he does not win 2020 US elections.
He said that China is expanding its influence on efforts to shape the policy environment in United States, pressure political figures which it views as opposed to China’s own interests, and counter criticism of China.
It has been stated that China will, however, continue to weigh the risks and benefits of aggressive action in election interference for its own benefits.
Facebook has also claimed that it shut down a network of accounts linked to China, which supported China is matters of importance, like disputed South China Sea.
Trump claims that the biggest threat of meddling in upcoming elections is from China, as China wouldn’t want Trump to win a second term as President. Joe Biden, on the other hand believes that the most aggressive interference is from the side of Russia as it wants Trump to stay as President for another term.
Robert O’Brien, US National security adviser said that China is currently the most active in cases relating to election meddling in US upcoming elections. He also believes that Chinese officials have the biggest program to influence domestic politics of US.
He backed this statement by saying that there is enough information that China hacks US Companies, politicians and Government agencies. Although he didn’t provide details in this matter, but claimed that it’s an extraordinary situation.
FBI has been so active in monitoring China’s efforts to acquire US technology and other sensitive information that it is opening a new counter intelligence investigation related to China in every 10 hours.
Current scenario of foreign interference in American Election 2020
United States Intelligence agencies have reported that Russia was repeating its efforts made in 2016 during election, where the aim was to hack into campaign of Hillary Clinton. Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to deny the attempts to interfere, even though the evidence says the contrary.
FBI recently hinted a tip to officials that there was spreading of disinformation, and had warned Microsoft of the same, following which Microsoft found that the hackers which were identified were linked to Russia, China & Iran, and these hackers tried to spy on people linked to Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
Microsoft, with the help of its Digital Crime Unit (DCU) took control of 6 internet domains, also mainly a group known as Strontium or Fancy bear or APT28 associated with Russian Government, on order of court to ensure democracy.
However, Putin denied these allegations repeatedly, and instead proposed to reach an agreement to prevent major cyberspace incidents, and to fully restore communication lines between the agencies in America and Russia so that discussion on key international information on security issues can take place.
Facebook claimed that it dismantled 3 networks that were supposedly fake accounts, allegedly used by Russian Intelligence services to leak hacked documents as a part of the attempt to disrupt United States elections.
They reported that they observed coordinated inauthentic behaviour between these accounts, but Russian President said that he does not interfere in domestic politics of other countries after stating that he wants Trump to win elections.
Head of cybersecurity policy (Facebook) Nathaniel Gleicher shared with public that no immediate evidence was discovered, and the probability of hack and leak operation in next 6-8 weeks is high.
Nathaniel also mentioned that there were some handful of accounts on platforms that enable photo sharing services like Instagram, posing as independent media outlets and think tanks, and had 97,000 followers (all accounts combined). Some activity was also noticed which targeted audience of Britain and United States.
Graham Brooke, who is the director of Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, worked with Facebook to analyse & study suspended accounts that depicted that Russia was still continuing efforts to exacerbate tensions in domestic politics of United States.
Twitter worked with Facebook recently and removed 350 accounts. It’s observed that the efforts put in by Russia is a sign of extremely serious national security vulnerability. These attacks are pursued in their own national self-interest.
The hackers allegedly from Russia had designed sites to mimic pages of The International Republican Institute & The Hudson Institute. Users when accessed these pages were redirected to fake websites where they were asked to enter their credentials like usernames and passwords.
Shedding some light on 2016 election meddling, Federal grand jury in United States indicted 12 Russian Intelligence officers who had hacked into computer networks of 2016 president candidate Hillary Clinton.
On 12th September 2020, a Russian man was indicted for stealing American identity. Trump’s key advisers have brought up a misleading argument that bigger election interference threat is from China as China doesn’t want Donald Trump to stay as a president.
Trump took it to twitter and tweeted that an attempt was being made to hurt his re-election bid by encouraging race protests & promotion of conservative article at odds with his intelligence community. A whistle-blower complaint was registered thereafter stating that activities carried out by china and Iran should be more focused on.
The Treasury department sanctioned Andrii Derkach, a politician and allegedly a Russian agent, for waging yearlong covert influence campaign which was centred on cultivating false and substantiated narratives regarding United States officials.
Sanctions were imposed on Artem Lifshits, Anton Andreyev, and Darya Aslanova who were allegedly a part of a project Lakhta, which was a Russian based effort to conduct electoral and political influence in United States.
In a disinformation campaign, a kremlin backed group also known as Internet Research Agency is evidently the first public evidence that proves agency is tirelessly trying to repeat efforts and push voters away from Joe Biden.
William Evanina, head of National Counter Intelligence & Security centre said in a press release that foreign countries are putting in tremendous efforts to sway voter preference and bring about a change in United States policies, and also increase discord and tension in country. Equal efforts are being put in to undermine American citizens’ confidence.
Keeping in view of the cyberattacks and probability of interference, Twitter took a step to expand its policies against misinformation relating election, and pledged to add fact check labels or hide tweets that contain false or misleading information which may cause confusion about election rules.
Recent reports state that US intelligence found an Iranian group known as Phosphorus, had unsuccessfully sought to access accounts of white house officials and Trump Campaign staff in period of May-June 2020. Atlantic Council believes that the Iranians are more focussed on promoting their national agenda.
History of election meddling.
In 1996 Russia swayed American election towards its own interest. Boris Yeltsin, a candidate for American election was seeking a second term and Bill Clinton wanted to help him for his acquiescence during NATO’s march eastward into former Soviet bloc.
Clinton then lobbied International Monetary Fund for an amount of 10 million dollars as loan to Russia, out of which a huge chunk was given to Yeltsin to distribute so that he could win votes. In the same year, Clinton admitted that he tried to elect Yeltsin, and he also helped Shimon Peres to win Israel’s election.
In 2016 American elections, a similar effort was put in to achieve the desired results of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although the President denies the accusations, it was reported that Russian hackers hacked emails of Democratic National Commission and Hillary Clinton, who was the rival candidate, and revealed those emails during homestretch of campaign to embarrass the nominee of Democratic National Committee.
It has come to the surface that hackers linked to Russia probed into American state voter database, hacked Clinton campaign along with Democratic congressional campaign committee and Democratic National commission, targeted Sen. Marco Rubio & other republicans, targeted Republican National commission and spread propaganda on social media platforms.
These hackers also staged physical events in United States, set up meetings with Trump Campaign, and tried to recruit people linked to Trump. However, it has not been evidently proved that Russian President had a hand in it.
A major breakthrough happened on 24th June 2020 when Clinton’s manager Robby Mook gave a public statement that state actors broke into DNC and hacked emails, and other experts reported that Russians were releasing these emails to help Donald Trump.
China’s past interference in Indian election and across Pacific.
It’s evidently put forward that powerful countries meddle in elections to have results favourable to them and set up governments of their choice. Similarly, China has meddled in elections of Africa so much that it has become a Chinese colony.
In India, several politicians brought up the issue of election meddling, accusing a Chinese application as mode of interference, called Helo. They claimed that it was running doctored pictures of politicians with sensationalised texts.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also complained to Election commission in March 2019 that a Chinese company ByteDance was interfering in Indian electoral process via social media platforms. In accordance to this, Facebook took down 11,000 advertisements from Helo which were violating the rules concerning the transparency in a political spending.
In February 2019, United States Federal Trade Commission fined TikTok for illegally collecting personal information and credentials from children under the age of 13, the highest amount of fine ever charged for this offence.
Countries tackling Chinese interference in elections
Keeping in mind the possibility of Chinese interference in electoral process, countries from Taiwan to Australia, and countries across Pacific set up new laws and organisations to tackle the issue. Some are enlisted below:
- Taiwan, ruled by Democratic Progressive Party passed an order to curb hostile external influence in island’s elections, imposing a sentence of up to 5 years on the person who will campaign, make political donations, or spread false news under instructions or guidance of any hostile power. A self-proclaimed Chinese spy last year said that he was a part of operations to meddle with Taiwan’s local elections held in 2019.
- New Zealand has banned all parties and candidates from receiving any foreign political donations of over $50(New Zealand Dollars). This law was set up after the 2018 scandal where a leader of opposition national party claimed that he received a large sum of money as donation from a Chinese businessman.
- Prime Minister of Australia has set up special task force which shall investigate foreign interference in electoral process. It has brought together intelligence agencies and police agencies for the task, mainly after certain reports came to light claiming that a Chinese spy ring was aiming to have Chinese-Australian individual run for parliament.
Reasons behind election meddling & common tactics practised.
As briefed in a book written by Dov H.Levin, titled “Meddling in Ballot Box: The causes & Effects of PARTISAN Electoral Interventions”, election meddling happens when two conditions exist at the same time –
- When foreign power feels deeply threatened by a part or a candidate with very divergent preferences of its own,
- When different local actors in that country agree to collude with intervener to provide political information.
A particular type of election meddling called spear fishing is a way by which hackers trick victims in entering their credentials like username and password on a fake website, and with the help of that steal the credentials for their particular purpose.
Other common tactics used are illicit campaign funding to the allies, or even sudden pre-election aid cut-off to a party/candidate, hacking of emails and spreading misinformation, pre-election threats or promises to a candidate, and training operatives of the ally in campaign.
NSA director, his agency and United States cyber command reportedly are prepared to conduct any needed operations against those who are attempting to undermine the state’s midterm elections.