ELECTION INTERFERENCEForeign Interference Threats Facing the 2024 U.S. Election

By Clare Roth

US intelligence and national security experts have told DW there is every reason to expect foreign actors will try to interfere with the 2024 presidential election. 

Although most of the intelligence surrounding 2024 election interference is classified, some official comment backs up what experts are reporting: US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray announced in February that many foreign actors were interested in the upcoming vote on November 5, 2024.

A report published by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) in April stated that although foreign interference started off slow this year, online threats — particularly from Russian actors — have already been spotted.

Governments typically engage in election interference to diminish the credibility of US democracy, distract Washington with internal issues and shift policy to favor their interests.

‘Vast’ Interference in 2016 U.S. election
Russian interference in the 2016 US election was, according to the Mueller Report which probed Russian meddling, “vast and complex.” Russian hackers used bots to spread polarizing misinformation on social media and broke into Democratic National Committee servers, among other efforts.

Since the 2016 election, which many experts say opened a new front in internet-based election interference, the US intelligence community has “elevated the priority assigned to foreign election interference, and reorganized to ensure that reporting from different sources is shared and evaluated in full context by a team of experts,” said Stephen Slick, a former Central Intelligence Agency and US National Security Council official.

Social media companies have also cooperated with the US government to patrol their sites for signs of foreign election interference over the past eight years, beefing up their threat analysis divisions.

One of the latest examples of this cooperation was announced at the Munich Security Conference in February. Executives from Amazon, Google, Meta and TikTok, among others, signed a pact agreeing to adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent AI tools from harming global elections. 

Russia Likely to Be Main Player in 2024 
Slick, who directs the University of Texas-Austin Intelligence Studies Project, said he believes Russia will probably be the main player in foreign attempts to intervene in election.

“President Putin is increasingly embittered and diplomatically isolated,” he said. “For the Russian leader, there is no question that an election victory by Donald Trump in November is preferable.”

Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee while current Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party.