Intelligence Agencies Accuse Iran, Russia of Trying to Use Voter Registration Data to Sow Chaos Ahead of US Election
Last month, a report in the Russian newspaper Kommersant sparked concerns that voter rolls in Michigan had been hacked but that was quickly ruled out by state officials.
Other election officials have likewise cautioned voters to be wary of such reports.
“Voter registration lists are public information, available for purchase or for free from the states,” a spokesperson for the National Association of State Election Directors told VOA at the time.
That Iran and Russia targeted the U.S. voters with less than two weeks before the election is also no surprise.
The top U.S. counterintelligence official, William Evanina, warned in August that both countries, along with China, were actively meddling in the election, hoping to influence the outcome.
Tehran, Evanina said at the time, was trying to damage Trump’s chances of reelection, fearing it “would result in a continuation of U.S. pressure on Iran in an effort to foment regime change.”
Russia, on the other hand, “is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President [Joe] Biden,” he said, adding “some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy.”
Earlier this month, though, Evanina told Hearst Television all three countries – Iran, Russia and China – were actively targeting the emails and servers for both the Trump and Biden campaigns.
Still, some cyber security experts say this latest influence operation by Iran, using the spoofed emails and the video, seems to indicate Tehran is getting more ambitious.
“This incident marks a fundamental shift in our understanding of Iran’s willingness to interfere in the democratic process,” John Hultquist, the senior director of analysis at Mandiant Threat Intelligence, said in a statement shared with VOA.
“While many of their operations have been focused on promoting propaganda in pursuit of Iran’s interests, this incident is clearly aimed at undermining voter confidence,” he said.
While U.S. intelligence concluded Iran, along with Russia and China, sought to meddle with the country’s 2018 elections, previous Iranian cyber activity has mostly focused on distributed denial of service attacks, which block access to websites by overwhelming the server hosting the site with internet traffic, efforts to deface websites and attempts to steal personal data.
Following Wednesday’s announcement, however, some lawmakers seemed to suggest Iran’s influence operation shows Tehran is copying Russia’s playbook, designed first and foremost to foment chaos and distrust.
“Russia & Iran want the losing side to reject the election outcome in order to undermine the winners [sic] legitimacy & spark a constitutional crisis,” acting Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Republican Marco Rubio, tweeted late Wednesday.
“Staging fake voter intimidation & sensationalist last minute claims of widespread election fraud lays the groundwork for this,” he added.
Earlier Wednesday, the Rubio and Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner urged voters not to let attacks on the election cause them to lose faith in the country’s election infrastructure.
“They may seek to target those systems, or simply leave the impression that they have altered or manipulated those systems, in order to undermine their credibility and our confidence in them,” they said in a joint statement.
“We urge every American – including members of the media – to be cautious about believing or spreading unverified, sensational claims related to votes and voting,” they said.
Jeff Seldin is VOA national security reporter. Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report. This article is published courtesy of the Voice of America (VOA).
