U.S. voters preparing to cast their ballots Tuesday got an early reminder about the onslaught of disinformation and foreign influence operations aimed at trying to upend the nation’s presidential election.
Just hours after polling stations opened, the FBI warned voters of at least two efforts to use the bureau’s name and likeness to promote false narratives.
In one case, FBI officials pointed to faked news clips urging Americans to “vote remotely” due to increased threats of a terror attack. In the other, the FBI cautioned social media accounts were spreading video of a fabricated news release about five prisons across the country involved in a vote-rigging scheme.
The bureau said both videos are “not authentic” and do not represent the current threat posture.
“Election integrity is among our highest priorities, and the FBI is working closely with state and local law enforcement partners,” the bureau said. “Attempts to deceive the public with false content about FBI threat assessments and activities aim to undermine our democratic process and erode trust in the electoral system.”
The FBI did not say who was responsible for creating the videos.
In recent days, U.S. intelligence officials have assigned responsibility for other videos claiming to show voting irregularities to Russian influence actors.
Russia has denied any involvement.
Concerns about what some U.S. officials have described as a “firehose of disinformation” have risen steadily, with U.S. intelligence agencies warning late Monday that Russia, and to a lesser extent Iran, were likely to intensify their influence operations on Election Day and in the days and weeks that follow.
“Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences,” according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
“We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close,” the CISA statement said. “These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials.”
But CISA, which helps oversee the security of U.S. election infrastructure, said early Tuesday that the election was running as smoothly as could be expected.
“We are not currently tracking any national level significant incidents impacting the security of our election infrastructure,” CISA senior adviser Cait Conley said during a briefing with reporters.
Conley said CISA is tracking some disruptions related to weather and other issues such as equipment failures, describing them as “really routine and, honestly, expected types of disruptions.”
CISA officials have warned that informational websites and infrastructure related to the election could be targeted by ransomware or distributed denial of service attacks. But they have emphasized that while inconvenient, such attacks would have little impact on the ability of Americans to cast ballots, since none of the country’s election systems are connected to the internet and because 97% of voting precincts have paper backups.
Still, there are concerns U.S. adversaries may try to seize upon any disruptions to incite panic and even violence.
“We know our foreign adversaries see this window of time, both Election Day and the days immediately following, as an opportunity to stoke further division and undermine American confidence in our democratic institutions,” Conley said. “And that is regardless of who wins.”
Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog and advocacy organization that has election observers stationed across the country, said Monday there has been tension at some polling places.
“We’re seeing instances of folks being yelled out at the polls,” Suzanne Almeida, the group’s director of state operations, said during a call with reporters.
She said bomb threats were called in to several polling stations in the southeastern U.S. state of Georgia.
“None of those have proven to have actual bombs associated with them. Voting has restarted at [at] least one of those locations,” Almedia said. “This is obviously something that is concerning, and we know that it’s not ideal, but I would say that the Georgia officials really did everything that they needed to do to respond to this, to make sure voters can still vote.”
