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The Left's Guide

Prepare for the Worst and Fight for the Best: A Citizen’s Guide to 2020 Electoral Interference

At this very moment, according to the U.S. intelligence community, Russia is interfering in the 2020 election in favor of Donald Trump. However, the Trump administration has obscured from the public and even from lawmakers the specific forms of interference Russia is executing, or intends to execute, as we approach Election Day. Our goal in this article is to assess—based on publicly available intelligence on Russia’s 2016 election interference, as well as on-the-record interviews of Obama administration officials who were serving in government in 2016, conducted by David Shimer and detailed in his book, Rigged: America, Russia, and 100 Years of Covert Electoral Interference—the cost-benefit analysis that Russia will undertake in deciding how far to push in attempting to disrupt and direct the 2020 election. Keeping in mind that one of the most effective ways to neutralize covert activity is to expose it, we hope that assessing Russia’s potential next moves will empower the electorate, lawmakers, and the media to prepare for a range of possible scenarios—and, in the process, to help maintain the integrity of our electoral process. A preliminary point to underscore is that, based on the history of Soviet, Russian, and American intelligence, election interference takes one of two broad forms. The first is to affect “hearts and minds.” This involves perception management operations to shape the attitudes and opinions of voters, with the intention of encouraging them to vote for a specific candidate or to refrain from voting at all for another, while also sowing discord within the targeted democracy. This form of interference is more indirect and generally lends the foreign actor a degree of plausible deniability, and its effects on the election are more difficult to measure. The second form of election interference involves directly affecting the actual votes cast, and their tabulation. This form of interference is more direct, generally has less plausible deniability (i.e., can be easier to attribute), and, if detected, can be assessed in terms of its precise impact on the electoral outcome, even if its effect on the public’s trust in the outcome remains difficult to ascertain.

https://www.justsecurity.org/72491/prepare-for-the-worst-and-fight-for-the-best-a-citizens-guide-to-2020-electoral-interference/