American voters face a challenging duality as they count down the days until November’s presidential election: a security landscape that officials say has become ever more dangerous even as the infrastructure to hold elections has become ever-more secure.
The run-up to the 2024 election has seen the “most complex threat landscape yet,” according to Cait Conley, a senior adviser at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the government body responsible for overseeing election security.
“We do see a growing and diverse array of foreign adversaries, foreign actors, trying to disrupt our elections,” Conley said Tuesday, speaking at Politico’s AI and Tech Summit in Washington.
But U.S. voters should feel confident, she added.
“We have been surging resources,” Conley said. “We have seen tremendous investment and progress in ensuring the full spectrum of security and resilience of our election infrastructure.”
Nevertheless, Conley and other U.S. officials acknowledge the dangers are widespread, often extending beyond the voting booth.
Physical threats
The FBI and U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday they are investigating suspicious packages sent to election workers in at least 12 states.
CISA officials have reported a growing number of swatting incidents — false reports to emergency services about violence or an emergency at a home or other location — targeting election workers.
And the number of direct threats is rising rapidly.
“We are seeing an unprecedented and extremely disturbing level of threats of violence, and violence, against public officials,” said U.S. Deputy General Lisa Monaco, also speaking at the summit in Washington.
“For sure weekly and, sometimes, daily,” Monaco said of the frequency of the threats.
Many of the threats target officials responsible for conducting elections.
“These are people who are simply volunteering their time to help all of us undertake the most fundamental right,” she said. “These are people who are being threatened simply for doing their job.”
Officials also warn that other public servants are getting a growing number of threats, including law enforcement officers, prosecutors and elected officials and candidates.
“It’s serious,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, citing Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump as he played golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He also pointed to the rash of threats in Springfield, Ohio, following the spread of unsubstantiated rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets.
“We are in a heightened threat environment … a threat environment that is of deep concern,” Mayorkas said. “It requires vigilance at every level of government and frankly on every block of each community across this country.”
Concerns about the heightened threat environment are not new.
Homeland Security officials have been warning of the dangers since at least January 2021, saying lone offenders or small groups could be motivated to carry out attacks motivated by a range of political and personal grievances.
Only now, high emotions over the election combined with efforts by U.S. adversaries are fueling discontent and anger that could lead to more attacks.
Cyber operations
“When it comes to malign influence campaigns, we are seeing a very aggressive set of actors,” Monaco said.
Many of the efforts to sow discord have originated in Russia and Iran, and to a lesser extent China. But they are far from alone.
“We’re seeing more actors in this space acting more aggressively in a more polarized environment and doing more with technologies, in particular AI,” Monaco said.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Justice Department took action against what it said were two Russian plots to spread disinformation, taking down 32 fake news websites while bringing charges against two employees of Russia-backed media outlet RT, accusing them of funneling nearly $10 million to a U.S. company to promote material favorable to the Russian government.
And last week, the U.S. State Department accused a number of Russian media companies, including RT, of working directly for Russia’s intelligence agencies – charges Russia and RT denied.
US preparations
The best defense, Monaco said, is for U.S. voters to be careful about where they get their information.
“We have to be very vigilant on what we are consuming,” she said.
Experts like Margaret Talev, who directs the Syracuse University Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship in Washington, agree.
Voters should “take a pause. Take a minute,” Talev told VOA. “It involves all of us teaching ourselves, taking our time and trying to verify information from multiple sources rather than just believing the first thing that we see.”
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), whose members play key roles in running elections, has also sought to make getting verified information easier, pushing a social media campaign it calls #TrustedInfo2024.
NASS says its goal is “to promote election officials as the trusted sources of election information during the 2024 election cycle and beyond.”
And CISA, the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, has been working with election officials across the country to make sure they are ready for almost any contingency.
CISA officials have also tried to rein in the hype about the dangers of AI, or artificial intelligence, blamed for helping U.S. adversaries to spread disinformation more effectively.
“Generative AI is not going to fundamentally introduce new threats to this election cycle,” the agency’s Conley told VOA earlier this month.
While AI is exacerbating existing threats, so far it has not produced anything elections officials have not already seen.
“This threat vector is not new to them,” Conley said. “And they have taken the measures to ensure they’re prepared to respond effectively.”
