positioned to try to affect US elections and the US public's perception of them by widely questioning the integrity of election results or promoting false claims about foreign actors' ability to manipulate US election infrastructure, judging from an IC review of foreign information operations since 2018.
- The decentralized, heterogeneous US election system poses challenges to foreign actors attempting to interfere with many elements of the election infrastructure. Election infrastructure comprises a diverse set of systems, networks, and processes. Each jurisdiction's election infrastructure is a collection of different components, some interconnected and others not, that function together to conduct elections.
- Greater awareness of foreign cyber operations, industry and government disclosures of activity, proactive information sharing with US state and local election officials and industry partners, and other mitigations probably have all increased system resilience. We also judge that since 2016, senior-level US public and private messaging to foreign actors about the potential costs of tampering with election systems probably has deterred some of this activity by establishing clear redlines.
- The lack of evidence indicating any willingness by foreign actors to undertake efforts against US election infrastructure suggests they prioritized other pathways to target US elections, probably because of the perceived lower risks associated with information operations. Foreign states are improving their capabilities, and are investing in technologies to better target and scale broader influence activities targeting the United States, particularly on social media.
(U) China
we assess that Beijing tacitly approved efforts to try to influence a handful of midterm races. People's Republic of China (PRC) intelligence officers, diplomats, and other influence actors probably viewed some election influence activities as consistent with Beijing’s standing guidance to counter US politicians viewed as anti-China and to support others viewed as pro-China.
(U) Plans, Intentions, and Calculus
Since 2020, PRC senior leaders have issued broad directives to intensify efforts to influence US policy and public opinion in China's favor. We assess that these directives gave PRC influence actors more freedom to operate ahead of the midterms than the presidential election in 2020, probably because PRC officials believed that Beijing was under less scrutiny during the midterms and because they did not expect the current Administration to retaliate as severely as they feared in 2020
- PRC leaders most likely see their efforts to magnify US societal divisions as a response to what they believe is an intensified US effort to promote democracy at China’s expense. Beijing almost certainly viewed the US midterm elections as an opportunity to portray the US democratic model as chaotic, ineffective, and unrepresentative, and frequently directed PRC messaging to highlight US divisions on social issues, such as abortion and gun control.[ 2 ]
