By DAVID KLEPPER and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hacking a local election system in the United States wouldn’t be easy, and secretly altering votes on a scale massive enough to change the outcome of the presidential race would be impossible, election officials have said, thanks to decentralized systems, paper records for nearly all ballots, exhaustive reviews, legal due process and decades of work by American election officials, volunteers and citizens.
But foreign actors and domestic extremist groups looking to meddle in next week’s election can target a much weaker link: voters’ perceptions and emotions. Those intent on undermining confidence in U.S. democracy don’t have to change any votes if they can convince enough Americans not to trust the outcome.
It’s a possible scenario particularly concerning to intelligence analysts and officials tasked with protecting America’s election: An adversary tries to hack a state or local election system and then releases a document — perhaps a fake one or even material that is publicly available — and suggests it’s evidence of vote rigging.
Or, a video is crafted showing someone supposedly hacking into a ballot scanner, voting machine or a state voter registration system. But it hasn’t happened, and it would not be true.
It’s called a perception hack, which may or may not include an actual breach of voting systems but is made to appear that has happened. In some cases, minor information might be stolen — enough for a video to appear legitimate — but it does not change votes. A related threat involves fake footage supposedly depicting election workers destroying ballots.
In either case, the goal is the same: to generate confusion, distrust and fear.
Governments at all levels have worked to strengthen election infrastructure in recent years. The human brain, however, remains hard to defend.
“I think that’s almost certain to happen,” former CIA political analyst Adam Darrah said when discussing the risk of perception hacks.
Darrah, now vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity company ZeroFox, said misleading people into thinking election systems are vulnerable is a lot easier than actually hacking into them. ”It’s a way to induce panic. We are very technically resilient. Our emotional resilience, our hypersensitivity, that’s still a challenge.”
Narrow margins of victory or delays in vote counting could heighten the risk that a perception hack could fool a large number of voters, further polarizing the electorate, raising the risk of political violence and potentially complicating the transfer of power in January.
Intelligence officials warned last week that Russia and Iran may consider encouraging violent protests in the U.S. following the election. The nation’s intelligence community and private analysts agree that while the Kremlin is backing former President Donald Trump, Moscow’s ultimate goal is to divide Americans and undermine U.S. support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.
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Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
