Romania, Foreign Election Interference, and a Dangerous U.S. Retreat
The Romanian Supreme Court decision cited evidence provided by intelligence agencies that the electoral process had been “compromised throughout its duration and across all stages.” Declassified information revealed, among other things, that over 100 paid influencers with a total of 8 million followers boosted Georgescu on TikTok and other social media platforms in the run-up to the election. Georgescu had been polling at negligible numbers prior to the election and then suddenly in the two weeks before the vote, he shot to ninth place on TikTok’s trending topics worldwide and ended up winning the most votes in the election. Romania’s domestic intelligence service reported its determination that Georgescu’s social media campaign had been coordinated by a state actor (unnamed in the court decision) with the help of a very good digital marketing firm. According to the declassified documents, 25,000 TikTok accounts, many likely automated or semi-automated, showed an abrupt spike in activity during the electoral period. Notably, 800 of those were accounts that had been created in 2016 but laid dormant until just before the election. In addition to this, accounts falsely presenting as Romanian institution accounts put forth posts supportive of Georgescu. Per the documents, the interference also included cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure.
The tactics used in the Romanian election have the markings of a Russia-backed operation and are certainly consistent with Russia’s attempts to interfere in other elections in the region, including in Moldova, Georgia, and Germany, not to mention its interference in U.S. elections in 2016, 2020, and 2024. The U.K.-based Foreign Policy Centre linked the Georgescu campaign operation to Russia-affiliated networks and state actors, noting in its analysis, “[t]he majority of state-affiliated actors promoting or referencing Georgescu were of Russian origin,” that “Russian state-owned media amplifie[d] the messaging through its myriad spin-offs across Europe,” and that the messaging used “strikingly align[ed] with Kremlin-backed postures, often reiterating —sometimes subtly, other times explicitly—content officially promoted by the Russian regime.” In addition, Romanian prosecutors investigating the matter reportedly found that troll farms using Russian email and Turkish IP addresses created 20,000 accounts, which posted over 2 million comments in November alone.
Kedian writes that making the decision to annul election results may be considered shocking, but that to see the basis for the court’s decision we must factor in the evidence of Russia’s extensive recent efforts to manipulate election results throughout the region; Romania’s geopolitical circumstances; and the risks which could flow from Romania allowing Russia to impose its will on the country.
“Recognizing the logic behind Romania’s decision in this instance does not, however, mean that canceling election results should be a normal response to foreign election interference,” Kedian writes. Such a cancelation might even give the adversaries behind the initial election interference another weapon in their arsenal, and offer additional support for the misleading narrative which feeds on fear and anger. “Instead of countering the interference that occurred in Romania, annulling the results may have even fueled greater distrust in the government,” she writes, adding:
The better approach to foreign election interference, the approach all democratic countries should strive for—and the approach the Romanian example loudly underscores—is to put in place better mechanisms not just to address the aftermath of foreign election interference, but to bolster citizens’ individual defenses against such interference well before it happens. These should include efforts to inform and educate citizens about covert tactics foreign actors are using and narratives they are pushing to manipulate opinions within a country, both during election season and outside of it. Finland, Sweden, and Canada are among the countries that have made important strides on this, as has the European Union.
Kedian concludes:
As many experts have noted, the Russian interference in 2016 did serve as a wake-up call. Different parts of American society came together to study and address the way technology and social media had reinvigorated the old foreign election interference threat. Congress, acting on a bipartisan basis, directed the State Department to establish the Global Engagement Center to publicize and counter foreign propaganda and disinformation directed at U.S. national security interests; the FBI established the Foreign Influence Task Force, which helped quickly relay threat indicators to the technology sector to help block covert foreign influence operations targeting Americans; Congress, again acting on a bipartisan basis, established the Foreign Malign Influence Center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to mitigate threats to democracy from foreign actors; the Department of Homeland Security established the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which, among many other tasks, helped identify and publicize foreign electoral interference tactics; tech platforms ramped up their resources for finding and removing inauthentic accounts, as well as reporting to the public about those efforts; research centers stepped in to analyze available data and produce independent assessments of foreign interference based on that data, as well as to provide resources to help educate the public.
All of those developments put the U.S. in a much stronger position to battle the real, persistent, and growing threat of covert foreign interference via social media platforms. They didn’t stop the threat completely, but combined, the collaborative developments from multiple parts of American society added friction to help contain the threat. Over the past several years, there have been a number of success stories in which covert foreign efforts to influence American voters have been identified and neutralized, including through criminal charges. Arguably, the most important part of that friction was an enhanced awareness among the American public about the existence and scope of the threat. But, as has been well documented, politics hijacked the true narrative over the past several years. In this hijacked false Alice in Wonderland narrative, these collaborative efforts were some sort of conspiratorial weaponization against conservative viewpoints. Never mind that the evidence for this is lacking and that perpetuating such a fiction is not just ludicrous, but will leave the United States more vulnerable to foreign electoral interference. In this false universe, political points matter more than facts and more than American citizens’ awareness of actual national security threats.
And so, as other countries continue to ramp up their efforts against foreign electoral interference, the U.S. is now moving full steam ahead to completely destroy its defenses against that threat: All of the positive U.S. government developments listed above have been dismantled or severely downgraded. In addition, tech platforms, nonprofits, and research centers have grown skittish, not because the new fictional narrative has any truth, but because steering clear of the political firestorm is necessary for survival. All of this leaves the U.S. public less informed and less safe from foreign interference.
It is true that on social media, a viewpoint pushed by a covert foreign influence operation may—and likely will—align with viewpoints held by some real Americans. But that does not mean all efforts to prevent that covert foreign influence operation are targeting the views of those real Americans. Nor does it mean that such prevention efforts should cease, just because of the overlap. Identifying covert foreign interference and separating it from authentic domestic voices can be challenging, but not impossible. It requires a coordinated strategy that involves buy-in from government, the private sector, nonprofits, research centers, and the general public.
What happened in the Romanian election and many other recent foreign election interference incidents demonstrates that the United States and other nations face an increasingly urgent need to address this threat. Some countries are rising to the challenge. The U.S. government is rapidly and inexplicably heading in the wrong direction. There are many ways the U.S. government should immediately reverse course—it should reinvigorate, not dismantle, the tools it developed in this area; it should encourage, not intimidate, partners that serve as force multipliers in this battle; and most of all, it should make sure its citizens have the facts and information they need to arm themselves. These steps are, admittedly, unlikely when the current U.S. president repeats false information that has been part of a Russian foreign influence operation. Influential authentic voices amplifying foreign disinformation enhance the difficulty of an already vexing problem. But, while it is true that this is a challenging problem, and the country is facing so many five-alarm fires that threaten its continued status as a democracy, this one must not be ignored or get lost in the chaos. It has been a bipartisan issue before and, hopefully, can be one again. Leaders from both political parties should step up to protect Americans on this issue, perhaps then giving the nongovernment partners the cover they need to rejoin the fight.
