vox--2020-09-15--Are China and Iran meddling in US elections? It’s complicated.

This spring , the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua posted a roughly two-minute video titled “ Once Upon a Virus ” on social media , including on official Chinese government accounts .
The video is in English and features Lego-like figures .
One of the Statue of Liberty , representing America , and a warrior Lego representing China , with what looks like medical workers decked out in PPE , behind it .
The video attempts to summarize a pandemic , with the Chinese Legos acting responsibly ( “ It ’ s airborne , ” the warrior says ) and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warnings ( “ It will magically go away in April ” ) as she starts to get sick .
The video ends with the Statue of Liberty figure red-faced , in a mask , hooked up to an IV .
The video had at least 2 million views on Twitter , according to the Hollywood Reporter , a website that is blocked in China .
This was meant for an audience — in April 2020 , perhaps a still locked down and disillusioned one — overseas .
The well-produced propaganda caught the notice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and a bit more skillful than the country ’ s more traditional — and usually clunkier — attempts at disinformation .
It was , above all , a reminder of what China wants to accomplish with any of its influence operations : advance China .
The same goes for China ’ s motivations when it comes to meddling in the United States — and what that might mean for the 2020 presidential election .
The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence ( ODNI ) has said it is “ concerned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China , Russia , and Iran ” when it comes to the US vote in November .
The warning comes four years after Russia ’ s interference efforts in the 2016 election , which never really stopped and continue to unsettle the country .
Intelligence and law enforcement officials have long warned that Russia is not alone ; other foreign adversaries are getting in on the game , China and Iran among them .
But just because US officials are calling out China and Iran alongside Russia doesn ’ t mean those two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I would expect each country to follow a different playbook , just because they have different approaches to foreign policy , ” Darrell M. West , vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution , told me .
“ And China and Iran already know that everybody ’ s watching how Russia does it .
I don ’ t think they just want to repeat that.
” Russia ’ s main strategy is to sow discord and division , and diminish faith in democracy .
It also favors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helps advance the first two goals , and because of his oft-stated desire to improve relations between Washington and Moscow .
China and Iran are more averse to chaos in the US , and are much more focused on pushing their own national objectives .
They want different things from the United States , Emerson T. Brooking , a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council , told me .
For China , that might mean promoting its Covid-19 narrative , or getting the US to shut up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that could mean promoting criticism of Israel or US sanctions policy .
All three countries have different capabilities .
China might not use online trolls in the way Russia or even Iran does because it has other , far more effective tools — economic , technological — that could achieve those aims .
And , of course , interference may go beyond disinformation or influence campaigns .
There is the threat of hacking or cyber intrusions of politicians , or campaigns , or even election infrastructure .
There is also a concern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governments might use money in politics .
And there ’ s probably something else , because as one analyst told me , what the US doesn ’ t want to be doing is fighting the last war .
It also doesn ’ t mean Russia , China , and Iran are equal threats , or that they ’ re all similarly invested in any 2020 outcome .
The ODNI , in its assessment , gave an overview of each country ’ s likely political preferences .
But there ’ s been some skepticism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Russia is this election cycle ; Democrats , in particular , have accused the Trump administration of trying to group all three countries together , creating a false equivalence when it comes to the 2020 election threat .
A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower complaint also alleges that the administration tried to downplay the Russia threat because it upsets Trump , and that National Security Adviser Robert O ’ Brien pressured the department to elevate China and Iran activities to the level of Russia ’ s , even though that didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ available .
So what should Americans make of the Iran and China threat in 2020 ?
Here ’ s a look at what we know — and a lot of what we don ’ t — about what foreign adversaries not named Russia may be doing in 2020 , and beyond .
What Russia wants isn ’ t what everyone else wants Meddling in US elections is nothing new for Moscow .
The Soviet Union did it throughout the Cold War .
But in 2016 , Russia carried out an influence operation that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ political dysfunction , rattling the American body politic then and even today .
Here are the highlights : Russians trolls amplified hyperpartisan or misleading news on US social media through the Internet Research Agency , an operation funded by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin .
Operatives linked to Russian military intelligence hacked the Democratic National Committee , dumping the information through WikiLeaks to try to stoke divisions within the Democratic Party and disparage the Democratic candidate , Hillary Clinton .
Russians with ties to the Kremlin made overtures to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigation .
Special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy between the campaign and Russians , though he documented numerous links .
A bipartisan Senate report also explored those ties , and documented many interactions between Trump campaign operatives and figures with connections to Russian intelligence .
Russians also probed election systems in all 50 states , entering voter and registration databases .
There is no evidence any votes were changed , though another bipartisan Senate report found that in some instances , the Russians could have if they wanted to .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ media and has reportedly attempted to hack campaigns associated with both Democrats and Republicans .
The Kremlin is also filtering pro-Russia narratives through Ukrainian politicians to undermine Biden and the Democrats , talking points that are being regurgitated by Trump and GOP allies .
The ODNI has said that Russia “ is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden.
” Taken together , Moscow ’ s tactics create chaos and distrust in US institutions and democracy , exacerbating America ’ s partisan divides like a finger pressed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s known publicly , China and Iran are echoing some of those strategies .
They ’ re spreading disinformation .
They reportedly targeted campaigns and political entities .
But China and Iran want different things when it comes to America .
Russia wants to disrupt and destabilize and confuse people on how to see the world .
Iran and China would like the world to see things their way .
At least right now , China , in particular , sees a lot more value in building itself up than in tearing America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ultimately , their interests are not served by an American political system that is chaotic , unable to think long-term , make strategic decisions about their relationships with either of those two countries , ” Priscilla Moriuchi , an expert on state-sponsored cyber operations and fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University , said .
This is not to say that China and Iran are cool with the United States as is .
But China doesn ’ t want a chaotic world , Brookings ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So if it ’ s going to meddle in the 2020 election , it ’ s not out to cause Russian-style pandemonium .
And what about who China and Iran want to win ?
The ODNI report says Russia wants to denigrate Biden , but says Iran and China have particular preferences when it comes to the 2020 election .
US intelligence assess China “ prefers that President Trump – whom Beijing sees as unpredictable – does not win reelection.
” But the ODNI doesn ’ t say that China is necessarily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , China ’ s operations are mostly focused on deflecting criticism of China .
As for Iran , the ODNI says it seeks to “ undermine President Trump ” and democratic institutions , saying it ’ s mostly focused on online and anti-US propaganda .
This has created a sense that Russia is on one side and China and Iran are on the other — one for Trump , two for Biden .
But this is the wrong way to look at it , experts told me .
It muddles the actual efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ It ’ s certainly true that different US adversaries might have different preferences for the outcome of the election , ” Brooking , of the Atlantic Council , told me .
“ But they don ’ t go about executing their goals the same way.
” Preference can be challenging to assess .
It can change .
It might not be all that strong .
Most critically , it does not necessarily mean a country is directly intervening or taking dramatic action to help or hurt a particular candidate .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ specific actions taken by a foreign power to interfere in the election and disrupt it and actively undermine the integrity of it , versus preference , ” Carrie Cordero , a national and cybersecurity expert at the Center for a New American Security , told me .
This is a US presidential election ; Beijing has a preference , but so do Brussels and Mexico City and Tokyo .
Allies and adversaries alike are going to have an idea of an outcome they ’ d like to see based on their own foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interests .
As Cordero said , that ’ s not the same thing as “ taking specific actions using their intelligence services , using their military , cyber capability to actively affect the outcome of our election.
” In August 2019 , Twitter and Facebook took down accounts linked to China .
Twitter , removing nearly 1,000 accounts , called it a “ significant state-backed information operation ” that sought to sow discord around the Hong Kong protests .
At the time , protests in Hong Kong against an extradition bill had transformed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ direct threat to China .
So China pushed back , using social media accounts to spin the demonstrations as violent , and its participants as terrorists and rioters .
When it comes to Chinese disinformation campaigns , that ’ s where they ’ ve mostly been focused : on issues and places close to Beijing .
Hong Kong , of course .
And Taiwan , where China actively tried to spread disinformation in the January presidential elections .
Covid-19 — and the US-China tensions over the virus — has helped accelerate the arrival @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US .
“ This was prompted in part by US ’ s own attempt to rebrand the coronavirus as the ‘ China virus , ’ ” Brooking told me .
“ But it is not clear that China is really interested in turning a lot of this apparatus to privilege one candidate or another in the presidential election.
” So far , China hasn ’ t really shown itself to be interested in that kind of disruption , James Andrew Lewis , senior vice president and director of the Technology Policy Program at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( CSIS ) , told me .
Instead , he said , China is “ more interested in getting the US off their back.
” “ With China , it ’ s to benefit China , ” Nina Jankowicz , a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center and author of How to Lose the Information War : Russia , Fake News , and the Future of Conflict , told me .
“ It ’ s about promoting a positive image of China , of their coronavirus response , of the political situation in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forth that Chinese worldview.
” So while China does touch on US politics , Renée DiResta , a research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory who ’ s studied influence operations , wrote in an email , “ there is not much evidence of a ‘ Russia-style ’ extended influence campaign to interfere in US society or elections.
” When China does try to comment directly on US politics , it tends to pivot around issues Beijing cares about — China ’ s handling of the coronavirus compared to the US , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests to attempt to call out the US ’ s hypocrisy on Hong Kong and criticism of China for its human rights abuses .
The results , though , can sometimes seem a little inelegant .
China tightly controls information at home through traditional and state-run media , and on social media through pro-Chinese Communist Party social media posters known as the “ 50 Cent Army.
” So sometimes it all seems a little over-the-top when directed abroad .
China also occasionally reveals its blind spots on the nuances of American politics .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry , tried to tweet in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters , but wrote “ all lives matter.
” But Moriuchi , at the Belfer Center , cautioned against the notion that this somehow means China is the JV team to Russia ’ s varsity , because , again , they ’ re essentially playing two different games .
Russia is trying to disrupt the 2020 election and see what kind of disorder it can create .
Beijing is playing the long game .
China isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it doesn ’ t need to Russia is an adversary , but Moscow can ’ t directly challenge the US ’ s economic dominance , or its position in global hegemony .
Trying to bolster the Russian political system in the US wouldn ’ t be as useful in weakening US democracy as , for instance , amplifying doubts about mail-in voting .
( And that wouldn ’ t be the case where Russia does have more influence , in , say , Belarus . )
Russia ’ s disruption tactics are a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power .
It ’ s low tech and not all that costly , but America ’ s homegrown political dysfunction has made it seem wildly effective .
This isn ’ t the case for China .
China is challenging the US for global hegemony .
“ China — the Chinese Communist Party — believes it is in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership , ” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in July .
China does want to manipulate the American political system to help achieve those ends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capabilities than Russia does .
“ It ’ s certainly true that if China wanted , they could have extraordinary impact on this social media space , ” Brooking said .
“ But the Chinese also don ’ t need to do that.
” They ’ re the second-largest economy in the world , he added .
“ They have so many levers of influence and power , which don ’ t rely on creating sock puppet accounts and botnets.
” China is carefully , and strategically , expanding its influence in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with our perception of “ meddling.
” And if China doesn ’ t like what the US or others are saying about its policies , it doesn ’ t necessarily need to rely on a fake Facebook page .
Take China ’ s economic influence .
Businesses and massive industries rely on China ’ s markets .
Beijing knows this .
Think of what happened with the NBA tweet about Hong Kong .
Or China ’ s influence in Hollywood , the most recent example being a Disney film partially produced in Xinjiang @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Uighur minority .
“ The Chinese don ’ t want you to say what we did in Hong Kong was bad , and they use market pressure and money and influence operations to push that China ’ s great : ‘ Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain , ’ ” CSIS ’ s Lewis said .
This also prompts certain industries or institutions to self-censor , tiptoeing around sensitive issues to avoid displeasing China .
But China can also more directly use its economic prowess , enticing Wall Street or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and universities that may push more Beijing-friendly talking points .
There are also legitimate concerns about what China is doing with its technology .
China uses apps like WeChat to spread pro-Chinese messaging , including to the Chinese diaspora around the world , and the government almost certainly uses it as a surveillance tool .
The same goes for concerns about censorship and/or data tracking on Chinese-owned apps like TikTok .
And then there are the hacking operations meant to gather intelligence — that is , to spy .
FBI Director Wray said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US opens a counterintelligence case against China every 10 hours ; of the FBI ’ s 5,000 counterintelligence cases , about half involve China .
China has waged a relentless campaign to steal technological and trade secrets from the United States .
Hackers with ties to Chinese military or intelligence have carried out cyber operations to steal massive amounts of data — hacks like the 2017 Equifax breach that affected about half of all Americans , or the Office of Personnel Management ( OPM ) hack .
Microsoft said this week that China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ specifically the email accounts of Biden ’ s campaign staffers and one former Trump administration official .
It has also targeted people at think tanks , according to the New York Times .
China has hacked campaigns before , including probing internal documents of the John McCain and Barack Obama campaigns in 2008 .
“ Most of the activity we ’ ve seen out of China has been what we might call cyber espionage , ” Josephine Wolff , assistant professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University , told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a track record of stealing a lot of information and then releasing it publicly .
That ’ s not to say they couldn ’ t do it — or they would never do it.
” So China is probing campaigns like the Russians ( and Iranians ) , but what it will do with that information is a lot less clear .
In 2016 , Russia released stolen information through WikiLeaks , which was far more dramatic and influential than just quietly collecting information for its own use .
China , we know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so far it hasn ’ t tried to dump any information to alter the presidential race .
And while these kinds of cyber intrusion and other forms of intelligence gathering are not exactly good or desirable for the US , they ’ re also not all that surprising — it would be kind of weird if foreign adversaries like China weren ’ t trying to collect data and information on campaigns — because someone is going to win , and that will be the US administration China must deal with .
The Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and its attempts to deflect blame for Covid-19 — has perhaps hurt the credibility of its warnings when it comes to China .
Add to that the whistleblower complaint suggesting the White House is trying to inflate the China threat .
But many experts and analysts I spoke to said that China has the capabilities to sway US politics ; it all depends on how it wants to use them .
“ There ’ s no question China ’ s the most technologically sophisticated for influence campaigns that reach beyond just elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ professor and director of research for the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University , told me .
What this means for 2020 specifically is much harder to parse , particularly based on the information that ’ s publicly available .
But experts said when it comes to China , it is very focused on the long-term goal of eclipsing the United States , and so Beijing is more methodical and sophisticated in its approach .
This makes China extremely risk-averse when it comes to its foreign policy or national security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some test and see , and these kinds of marginal and incremental changes , ” Mourichi said of China .
She said this election cycle may be like a testing ground for some of the influence operations China may want to pursue in the future : “ what is helping them accomplish their goals , what ’ s working , what ’ s not.
” Iran is an adversary , but it isn ’ t in the same league as Russia or China If China wants greater world influence , Iran wants regional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iran as leader of the wider Islamic world .
And they want to assail Saudi Arabia and the UAE , ” Brooking said .
“ They ’ re also extremely critical of Israel .
And they cast themselves as the principal defender and resistor against US global hegemony.
” Because of this , it can also make it a little easier to spot Iranian disinformation .
“ In virtually all of the propaganda , the fake websites , the bot accounts and sock puppets are promoting one of these narratives , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really not that hard to figure out the sort of propaganda that ’ s in Iran ’ s corner.
” That doesn ’ t mean Iran isn ’ t trying , though .
Last fall , Facebook took down some Iranian-linked pages , including a site called BLM News .
According to Facebook , “ the Page admins and account owners typically posted about political issues including topics like race relations in the US , criticism of US and Israel ’ s policy on Iran , the Black Lives Matter movement , African-American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This kind of odd mixing of topics — US sanctions policy , say , next to criminal justice reform — can be a little , well , obvious .
That ’ s not to say it can ’ t , or doesn ’ t , move any minds , but it ’ s a bit harder for most people ( hopefully ) to buy that it ’ s really just a US Facebook group .
Iranian operatives also use other methods to try to promote their worldview — like posing as journalists or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from lawmakers , academics , or contractors , and , in some cases , trying to plant favorable stories in the foreign press .
And Iran definitely has cyber capabilities .
But Zoli said , overall , they ’ re not sophisticated enough to have a truly enormous impact .
“ They don ’ t have the capabilities and they haven ’ t thought through a really multi-pronged strategy .
They ’ re not going after , you know , these ancillary institutional sites to try to have a big impact on political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials and former administration officials , and this is something they ’ ve been doing for months .
However , according to Microsoft , the Iranians have had limited success in actually gaining access .
Iran is most likely trying to gain access to information about Trump officials ’ plans for the US , though whether it will use any information ( assuming it can access it ) and release it publicly is less clear .
Plus , the stakes are a bit higher for Iran .
The US ’ s ability to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , considering the Trump administration is already engaged in a maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian government .
Election interference operations are not unique to the United States , or 2020 .
The US , like other democracies , is more vulnerable to influence operations because it is an open society with freedom of speech .
Foreign actors can more easily enter our ecosystem .
Right now , America ’ s ecosystem is bitterly divided .
A lot of misinformation — from Covid-19 conspiracy theories to QAnon — is homegrown .
Which means @ @ @ @ @ @ @ else doesn ’ t have to do much since so much is made in the US .
And let ’ s be real : Plenty of other countries — even those who ’ d fall into the US ally camp — are using social media to spread state propaganda , or messaging that favors their foreign policy goals .
Saudi Arabia-linked accounts have spread pro-Trump messaging on Twitter .
During the George Floyd protests , Turkey tried to link Syrian Kurds to antifa .
Whether this stuff really works isn ’ t the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of resources , it ’ s not all that complicated , and right now , getting taken down by Twitter or Facebook is a fairly low cost .
Other modes of election interference — like the hacking of politicians or election infrastructure — are much more sinister threats .
But again , if the online disinformation works , Russia or anyone else doesn ’ t actually have to change any votes .
If the specter of a rigged election is there , that may be good enough .
Understanding this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zoli told me she sees the ODNI document as educational , not so much for what it tells us about what our adversaries are up to , but as a way to “ raise the public ’ s awareness that these election interferences are common and consistent .
And you need to be kind of on guard about them .
And you need to harden your approach to them.
” And that has happened post-2016 .
Social media companies have gotten better at identifying these malign accounts .
Campaigns and politicians are more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sex-trafficking conspiracies , and they ’ ve hardened their systems , too .
The Trump administration ’ s handling of election interference has raised questions , including the decision to stop giving in-person intelligence briefings to Congress and the recent whistleblower complaint .
But law enforcement has learned from 2016 , too , and has undertaken more robust efforts to protect the US from interference .
There ’ s still way more to be done .
Election security bills have languished in the GOP-controlled Senate .
Adversaries are adapting new strategies , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t expect .
If Russia taught the world , or America , anything in 2016 , it ’ s that election interference is not going away .
“ This is our future , ” West , of the Brookings Institution , said .
“ Because what Russia taught the rest of the world in 2016 was how easy it was to affect American elections.
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This spring, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua posted a roughly two-minute video titled “Once Upon a Virus” on social media, including on official Chinese government accounts.
The video is in English and features Lego-like figures. One of the Statue of Liberty, representing America, and a warrior Lego representing China, with what looks like medical workers decked out in PPE, behind it.
The video attempts to summarize a pandemic, with the Chinese Legos acting responsibly (“It’s airborne,” the warrior says) and the Statue of Liberty Lego downplaying said warnings (“It will magically go away in April”) as she starts to get sick. The video ends with the Statue of Liberty figure red-faced, in a mask, hooked up to an IV.
The video had at least 2 million views on Twitter, according to the Hollywood Reporter, a website that is blocked in China. This was meant for an audience — in April 2020, perhaps a still locked down and disillusioned one — overseas.
The well-produced propaganda caught the notice of China watchers. It was satire, and a bit more skillful than the country’s more traditional — and usually clunkier — attempts at disinformation. It was, above all, a reminder of what China wants to accomplish with any of its influence operations: advance China.
The same goes for China’s motivations when it comes to meddling in the United States — and what that might mean for the 2020 presidential election.
The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has said it is “concerned about the ongoing and potential activity by China, Russia, and Iran” when it comes to the US vote in November. The warning comes four years after Russia’s interference efforts in the 2016 election, which never really stopped and continue to unsettle the country. Intelligence and law enforcement officials have long warned that Russia is not alone; other foreign adversaries are getting in on the game, China and Iran among them.
But just because US officials are calling out China and Iran alongside Russia doesn’t mean those two countries are following Russia’s script.
“I would expect each country to follow a different playbook, just because they have different approaches to foreign policy,” Darrell M. West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, told me. “And China and Iran already know that everybody’s watching how Russia does it. I don’t think they just want to repeat that.”
Russia’s main strategy is to sow discord and division, and diminish faith in democracy. It also favors President Donald Trump, partly because he helps advance the first two goals, and because of his oft-stated desire to improve relations between Washington and Moscow.
China and Iran are more averse to chaos in the US, and are much more focused on pushing their own national objectives. They want different things from the United States, Emerson T. Brooking, a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, told me.
For China, that might mean promoting its Covid-19 narrative, or getting the US to shut up about Hong Kong protests. For Iran, that could mean promoting criticism of Israel or US sanctions policy.
All three countries have different capabilities. China might not use online trolls in the way Russia or even Iran does because it has other, far more effective tools — economic, technological — that could achieve those aims.
And, of course, interference may go beyond disinformation or influence campaigns. There is the threat of hacking or cyber intrusions of politicians, or campaigns, or even election infrastructure. There is also a concern over how individuals with ties to foreign governments might use money in politics. And there’s probably something else, because as one analyst told me, what the US doesn’t want to be doing is fighting the last war.
It also doesn’t mean Russia, China, and Iran are equal threats, or that they’re all similarly invested in any 2020 outcome. The ODNI, in its assessment, gave an overview of each country’s likely political preferences. But there’s been some skepticism that China and Iran are as active as Russia is this election cycle; Democrats, in particular, have accused the Trump administration of trying to group all three countries together, creating a false equivalence when it comes to the 2020 election threat.
A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower complaint also alleges that the administration tried to downplay the Russia threat because it upsets Trump, and that National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien pressured the department to elevate China and Iran activities to the level of Russia’s, even though that didn’t fit with the actual intelligence data available.
So what should Americans make of the Iran and China threat in 2020? Here’s a look at what we know — and a lot of what we don’t — about what foreign adversaries not named Russia may be doing in 2020, and beyond.
What Russia wants isn’t what everyone else wants
Meddling in US elections is nothing new for Moscow. The Soviet Union did it throughout the Cold War. But in 2016, Russia carried out an influence operation that successfully exploited social media and United States’ political dysfunction, rattling the American body politic then and even today.
Here are the highlights: Russians trolls amplified hyperpartisan or misleading news on US social media through the Internet Research Agency, an operation funded by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Operatives linked to Russian military intelligence hacked the Democratic National Committee, dumping the information through WikiLeaks to try to stoke divisions within the Democratic Party and disparage the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Russians with ties to the Kremlin made overtures to the Trump campaign, which came under federal investigation. Special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy between the campaign and Russians, though he documented numerous links. A bipartisan Senate report also explored those ties, and documented many interactions between Trump campaign operatives and figures with connections to Russian intelligence.
Russians also probed election systems in all 50 states, entering voter and registration databases. There is no evidence any votes were changed, though another bipartisan Senate report found that in some instances, the Russians could have if they wanted to.
Russia is still pushing disinformation through social media and has reportedly attempted to hack campaigns associated with both Democrats and Republicans. The Kremlin is also filtering pro-Russia narratives through Ukrainian politicians to undermine Biden and the Democrats, talking points that are being regurgitated by Trump and GOP allies. The ODNI has said that Russia “is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden.”
Taken together, Moscow’s tactics create chaos and distrust in US institutions and democracy, exacerbating America’s partisan divides like a finger pressed to a bruise.
Based on what’s known publicly, China and Iran are echoing some of those strategies. They’re spreading disinformation. They reportedly targeted campaigns and political entities.
But China and Iran want different things when it comes to America.
Russia wants to disrupt and destabilize and confuse people on how to see the world. Iran and China would like the world to see things their way. At least right now, China, in particular, sees a lot more value in building itself up than in tearing America apart.
“For China and Iran, ultimately, their interests are not served by an American political system that is chaotic, unable to think long-term, make strategic decisions about their relationships with either of those two countries,” Priscilla Moriuchi, an expert on state-sponsored cyber operations and fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, said.
This is not to say that China and Iran are cool with the United States as is. But China doesn’t want a chaotic world, Brookings’s West told me. It wants stability. So if it’s going to meddle in the 2020 election, it’s not out to cause Russian-style pandemonium.
And what about who China and Iran want to win?
The ODNI report says Russia wants to denigrate Biden, but says Iran and China have particular preferences when it comes to the 2020 election. US intelligence assess China “prefers that President Trump – whom Beijing sees as unpredictable – does not win reelection.” But the ODNI doesn’t say that China is necessarily tipping the scales for Biden. Instead, China’s operations are mostly focused on deflecting criticism of China.
As for Iran, the ODNI says it seeks to “undermine President Trump” and democratic institutions, saying it’s mostly focused on online and anti-US propaganda.
This has created a sense that Russia is on one side and China and Iran are on the other — one for Trump, two for Biden. But this is the wrong way to look at it, experts told me. It muddles the actual efforts and objectives of each of these actors.
“It’s certainly true that different US adversaries might have different preferences for the outcome of the election,” Brooking, of the Atlantic Council, told me. “But they don’t go about executing their goals the same way.”
Preference can be challenging to assess. It can change. It might not be all that strong. Most critically, it does not necessarily mean a country is directly intervening or taking dramatic action to help or hurt a particular candidate.
“There’s a big difference between specific actions taken by a foreign power to interfere in the election and disrupt it and actively undermine the integrity of it, versus preference,” Carrie Cordero, a national and cybersecurity expert at the Center for a New American Security, told me.
This is a US presidential election; Beijing has a preference, but so do Brussels and Mexico City and Tokyo. Allies and adversaries alike are going to have an idea of an outcome they’d like to see based on their own foreign policy, national security, and economic interests. As Cordero said, that’s not the same thing as “taking specific actions using their intelligence services, using their military, cyber capability to actively affect the outcome of our election.”
China’s influence operations revolve around China
In August 2019, Twitter and Facebook took down accounts linked to China. Twitter, removing nearly 1,000 accounts, called it a “significant state-backed information operation” that sought to sow discord around the Hong Kong protests.
At the time, protests in Hong Kong against an extradition bill had transformed into a massive pro-democracy movement, a direct threat to China. So China pushed back, using social media accounts to spin the demonstrations as violent, and its participants as terrorists and rioters.
When it comes to Chinese disinformation campaigns, that’s where they’ve mostly been focused: on issues and places close to Beijing. Hong Kong, of course. And Taiwan, where China actively tried to spread disinformation in the January presidential elections.
Covid-19 — and the US-China tensions over the virus — has helped accelerate the arrival of more overt Chinese propaganda in the US. “This was prompted in part by US’s own attempt to rebrand the coronavirus as the ‘China virus,’” Brooking told me. “But it is not clear that China is really interested in turning a lot of this apparatus to privilege one candidate or another in the presidential election.”
So far, China hasn’t really shown itself to be interested in that kind of disruption, James Andrew Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told me. Instead, he said, China is “more interested in getting the US off their back.”
“With China, it’s to benefit China,” Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center and author of How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict, told me. “It’s about promoting a positive image of China, of their coronavirus response, of the political situation in China. It’s about putting forth that Chinese worldview.”
So while China does touch on US politics, Renée DiResta, a research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory who’s studied influence operations, wrote in an email, “there is not much evidence of a ‘Russia-style’ extended influence campaign to interfere in US society or elections.”
When China does try to comment directly on US politics, it tends to pivot around issues Beijing cares about — China’s handling of the coronavirus compared to the US, or when Chinese officials used the George Floyd protests to attempt to call out the US’s hypocrisy on Hong Kong and criticism of China for its human rights abuses.
The results, though, can sometimes seem a little inelegant. China tightly controls information at home through traditional and state-run media, and on social media through pro-Chinese Communist Party social media posters known as the “50 Cent Army.”
So sometimes it all seems a little over-the-top when directed abroad. China also occasionally reveals its blind spots on the nuances of American politics. For example, Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, tried to tweet in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters, but wrote “all lives matter.”
But Moriuchi, at the Belfer Center, cautioned against the notion that this somehow means China is the JV team to Russia’s varsity, because, again, they’re essentially playing two different games. Russia is trying to disrupt the 2020 election and see what kind of disorder it can create. Beijing is playing the long game.
China isn’t doing what Russia is doing because it doesn’t need to
Russia is an adversary, but Moscow can’t directly challenge the US’s economic dominance, or its position in global hegemony. Trying to bolster the Russian political system in the US wouldn’t be as useful in weakening US democracy as, for instance, amplifying doubts about mail-in voting. (And that wouldn’t be the case where Russia does have more influence, in, say, Belarus.)
Russia’s disruption tactics are a kind of asymmetric warfare against a larger power. It’s low tech and not all that costly, but America’s homegrown political dysfunction has made it seem wildly effective.
This isn’t the case for China. China is challenging the US for global hegemony. “China — the Chinese Communist Party — believes it is in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in July. China does want to manipulate the American political system to help achieve those ends. It just has a lot more capabilities than Russia does.
“It’s certainly true that if China wanted, they could have extraordinary impact on this social media space,” Brooking said. “But the Chinese also don’t need to do that.” They’re the second-largest economy in the world, he added. “They have so many levers of influence and power, which don’t rely on creating sock puppet accounts and botnets.”
China is carefully, and strategically, expanding its influence in the US in ways that might not fit with our perception of “meddling.” And if China doesn’t like what the US or others are saying about its policies, it doesn’t necessarily need to rely on a fake Facebook page.
Take China’s economic influence. Businesses and massive industries rely on China’s markets. Beijing knows this. Think of what happened with the NBA tweet about Hong Kong. Or China’s influence in Hollywood, the most recent example being a Disney film partially produced in Xinjiang province, where China is repressing the Uighur minority.
“The Chinese don’t want you to say what we did in Hong Kong was bad, and they use market pressure and money and influence operations to push that China’s great: ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,’” CSIS’s Lewis said.
This also prompts certain industries or institutions to self-censor, tiptoeing around sensitive issues to avoid displeasing China. But China can also more directly use its economic prowess, enticing Wall Street or Hollywood with investment or funding think tanks and universities that may push more Beijing-friendly talking points.
There are also legitimate concerns about what China is doing with its technology. China uses apps like WeChat to spread pro-Chinese messaging, including to the Chinese diaspora around the world, and the government almost certainly uses it as a surveillance tool. The same goes for concerns about censorship and/or data tracking on Chinese-owned apps like TikTok.
And then there are the hacking operations meant to gather intelligence — that is, to spy. FBI Director Wray said in that same July speech that the US opens a counterintelligence case against China every 10 hours; of the FBI’s 5,000 counterintelligence cases, about half involve China.
China has waged a relentless campaign to steal technological and trade secrets from the United States. Hackers with ties to Chinese military or intelligence have carried out cyber operations to steal massive amounts of data — hacks like the 2017 Equifax breach that affected about half of all Americans, or the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack.
Microsoft said this week that China has attempted to hack political campaigns, specifically the email accounts of Biden’s campaign staffers and one former Trump administration official. It has also targeted people at think tanks, according to the New York Times. China has hacked campaigns before, including probing internal documents of the John McCain and Barack Obama campaigns in 2008.
“Most of the activity we’ve seen out of China has been what we might call cyber espionage,” Josephine Wolff, assistant professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told me. “China does not have a track record of stealing a lot of information and then releasing it publicly. That’s not to say they couldn’t do it — or they would never do it.”
So China is probing campaigns like the Russians (and Iranians), but what it will do with that information is a lot less clear. In 2016, Russia released stolen information through WikiLeaks, which was far more dramatic and influential than just quietly collecting information for its own use. China, we know, has these cyber capabilities, but so far it hasn’t tried to dump any information to alter the presidential race.
And while these kinds of cyber intrusion and other forms of intelligence gathering are not exactly good or desirable for the US, they’re also not all that surprising — it would be kind of weird if foreign adversaries like China weren’t trying to collect data and information on campaigns — because someone is going to win, and that will be the US administration China must deal with.
The Trump administration’s hard line against China — and its attempts to deflect blame for Covid-19 — has perhaps hurt the credibility of its warnings when it comes to China. Add to that the whistleblower complaint suggesting the White House is trying to inflate the China threat.
But many experts and analysts I spoke to said that China has the capabilities to sway US politics; it all depends on how it wants to use them.
“There’s no question China’s the most technologically sophisticated for influence campaigns that reach beyond just elections,” Corri Zoli, associate teaching professor and director of research for the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, told me.
What this means for 2020 specifically is much harder to parse, particularly based on the information that’s publicly available. But experts said when it comes to China, it is very focused on the long-term goal of eclipsing the United States, and so Beijing is more methodical and sophisticated in its approach. This makes China extremely risk-averse when it comes to its foreign policy or national security objectives.
“They tend to do some test and see, and these kinds of marginal and incremental changes,” Moriuchi said of China. She said this election cycle may be like a testing ground for some of the influence operations China may want to pursue in the future: “what is helping them accomplish their goals, what’s working, what’s not.”
Iran is an adversary, but it isn’t in the same league as Russia or China
If China wants greater world influence, Iran wants regional influence.
“They want to center Iran as leader of the wider Islamic world. And they want to assail Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Brooking said. “They’re also extremely critical of Israel. And they cast themselves as the principal defender and resistor against US global hegemony.”
Because of this, it can also make it a little easier to spot Iranian disinformation. “In virtually all of the propaganda, the fake websites, the bot accounts and sock puppets are promoting one of these narratives,” he added. “So it’s really not that hard to figure out the sort of propaganda that’s in Iran’s corner.”
That doesn’t mean Iran isn’t trying, though.
Last fall, Facebook took down some Iranian-linked pages, including a site called BLM News. According to Facebook, “the Page admins and account owners typically posted about political issues including topics like race relations in the US, criticism of US and Israel’s policy on Iran, the Black Lives Matter movement, African-American culture and the Iranian foreign policy.“
This kind of odd mixing of topics — US sanctions policy, say, next to criminal justice reform — can be a little, well, obvious. That’s not to say it can’t, or doesn’t, move any minds, but it’s a bit harder for most people (hopefully) to buy that it’s really just a US Facebook group.
Iranian operatives also use other methods to try to promote their worldview — like posing as journalists or activists to try to steal sensitive information from lawmakers, academics, or contractors, and, in some cases, trying to plant favorable stories in the foreign press.
And Iran definitely has cyber capabilities. But Zoli said, overall, they’re not sophisticated enough to have a truly enormous impact. “They don’t have the capabilities and they haven’t thought through a really multi-pronged strategy. They’re not going after, you know, these ancillary institutional sites to try to have a big impact on political decision-making.”
Iran is probing Trump campaign officials and former administration officials, and this is something they’ve been doing for months. However, according to Microsoft, the Iranians have had limited success in actually gaining access. Iran is most likely trying to gain access to information about Trump officials’ plans for the US, though whether it will use any information (assuming it can access it) and release it publicly is less clear.
Plus, the stakes are a bit higher for Iran. The US’s ability to retaliate could be pretty damaging to Tehran, considering the Trump administration is already engaged in a maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian government.
The bigger picture on political influence
Election interference operations are not unique to the United States, or 2020. The US, like other democracies, is more vulnerable to influence operations because it is an open society with freedom of speech. Foreign actors can more easily enter our ecosystem.
Right now, America’s ecosystem is bitterly divided. A lot of misinformation — from Covid-19 conspiracy theories to QAnon — is homegrown. Which means Russia or China or Iran or anyone else doesn’t have to do much since so much is made in the US.
And let’s be real: Plenty of other countries — even those who’d fall into the US ally camp — are using social media to spread state propaganda, or messaging that favors their foreign policy goals. Saudi Arabia-linked accounts have spread pro-Trump messaging on Twitter. During the George Floyd protests, Turkey tried to link Syrian Kurds to antifa. Whether this stuff really works isn’t the point; it doesn’t require a lot of resources, it’s not all that complicated, and right now, getting taken down by Twitter or Facebook is a fairly low cost.
Other modes of election interference — like the hacking of politicians or election infrastructure — are much more sinister threats. But again, if the online disinformation works, Russia or anyone else doesn’t actually have to change any votes. If the specter of a rigged election is there, that may be good enough.
Understanding this is really the best defense for Americans. Zoli told me she sees the ODNI document as educational, not so much for what it tells us about what our adversaries are up to, but as a way to “raise the public’s awareness that these election interferences are common and consistent. And you need to be kind of on guard about them. And you need to harden your approach to them.”
And that has happened post-2016. Social media companies have gotten better at identifying these malign accounts. Campaigns and politicians are more aware that their random emails can become sex-trafficking conspiracies, and they’ve hardened their systems, too.
The Trump administration’s handling of election interference has raised questions, including the decision to stop giving in-person intelligence briefings to Congress and the recent whistleblower complaint. But law enforcement has learned from 2016, too, and has undertaken more robust efforts to protect the US from interference.
There’s still way more to be done. Election security bills have languished in the GOP-controlled Senate. Adversaries are adapting new strategies, which means something may happen that the US doesn’t expect.
If Russia taught the world, or America, anything in 2016, it’s that election interference is not going away. “This is our future,” West, of the Brookings Institution, said. “Because what Russia taught the rest of the world in 2016 was how easy it was to affect American elections.”


vox--2020-09-17--Want to vote in 2020? Do it early.

Want to vote in 2020? Do it early.

Vox answers your biggest questions about the 2020 US presidential election , which could be one of the most consequential of our lifetimes .
The presidential election is 50 days away , and here ’ s what America is dealing with : a raging pandemic , a crisis at the United States Postal Service , the threat of foreign meddling , and lots of misinformation , including from the president ’ s Twitter account .
All of this raises a serious question : How can you make sure your vote will count in 2020 ?
Voting in the middle of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different .
For those who choose to vote in person , voters and poll workers will likely have to social distance and wear masks .
A lot of people might forgo in-person voting altogether ; the number of Americans voting by mail is expected to double compared to 2016 .
And then came the controversy at the United States Postal Service .
A series of cost-cutting measures sparked delays in mail delivery , which critics feared could undermine the USPS ’ s ability to sort and deliver ballots in time to be counted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The USPS has since suspended these changes , and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy assured lawmakers in August that the November election is his “ number one priority.
” But primary season amid the Covid-19 pandemic didn ’ t exactly go smoothly .
The Washington Post reported that some half a million mail-in ballots were rejected in the primaries , a combination of late delivery and voter error .
All this is eroding faith in the exercise of democracy this November — and , potentially , in the election results themselves .
The United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before the pandemic and will after , unless there ’ s reform .
There should be .
But that ’ s not going to happen in time for November 3 .
Indeed , many states will start mailing out ballots in just a few weeks .
So here ’ s a guide on how voters can better navigate the election and , in the process , make the voting system better for everyone .
The biggest takeaway : Don ’ t wait .
“ If you do you want to simplify it down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s two words : Plan early , ” David Becker , executive director and founder of the Center for Innovation & Election Research , told me .
“ That ’ s it , that ’ s everything.
” Make a plan , and do it early There ’ s been a lot of talk about making a “ voting plan.
” “ Make a plan right now for how you are going to get involved and vote , ” former President Barack Obama said during his address at the Democratic National Convention .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ can , and tell your family and friends how they can vote , too.
” There is one guiding principle to this plan , and you have maybe guessed it : Do everything — everything , everything , everything — early .
The very first step is the most critical : Make sure you can vote .
Find out if you are registered .
Even if you think you are , you can double-check and make sure your information is up to date .
Do this now at your state or local election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here .
Seriously , do it now , we ’ ll wait .
Since you ’ re now hanging out on the web page belonging to your area ’ s election officials , it ’ s probably worth checking all the voting deadlines and requirements .
That can help you decide which way you can and want to vote : by mail or in person .
• Check your registration .
If you haven ’ t registered , do it now .
• If any information is inaccurate or out of date , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ details and the voting registration deadlines on your local board of elections website .
• Decide how you want to vote and review the deadlines for each .
This will broadly be voting by mail or voting in person .
If you aren ’ t sure yet which you want to do , read on for some things to think about when making that decision .
Should I vote by mail ?
If you can and you want to , you need to do it early .
Many more states are going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their ballots this year .
Some states are sending ballots to every registered voter — either because they ’ ve been doing it that way for a long time or they ’ ve adopted these policies because of Covid-19 .
In total , nine states ( plus Washington , DC ) are mailing ballots to all eligible voters : California , Colorado , Hawaii , Nevada , New Jersey , Oregon , Utah , Vermont , and Washington .
About 35 other states will allow voters to mail in absentee ballots without having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accept Covid-19 as an excuse .
Some of those states , like Delaware , are sending everyone applications for mail-in ballots .
In others , you must request a ballot directly from your local election office .
There are still a handful of states where you must cite a specific reason for voting absentee : Indiana , Louisiana , Mississippi , Tennessee , and Texas .
Maybe you ’ re thinking : Okay , I can vote by mail , but should I ?
What about all this stuff about the post office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
The bottom line : If you ’ re going to rely on the mail to vote , do everything early .
That means request your ballot right away if you need to request one .
And when you get it , fill it out and mail it back as soon as possible .
“ Despite all the talk and hullabaloo about the post office , what ’ s going to happen — as long as you allow enough time — your ballot should get there , ” Trey Hood , director of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia , told me .
That hullabaloo mostly has to do with the new postmaster general , Louis DeJoy , a Trump ally and donor appointed in June .
Since he arrived , the USPS has rolled out cost-cutting measures that generated serious lag times in the mail .
As Recode ’ s Adam Clark Estes reported , those measures included a major staff shake-up at the agency , limiting overtime , scaling back the number of trips mail trucks could take each day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are used to sort millions of pieces of flat mail per hour , including ballots .
DeJoy distanced himself from some of the changes , saying that some predate his arrival , but he has defended others as necessary to keep the Postal Service sustainable in the long term .
The Postal Service has for years faced serious financial problems , and the coronavirus pandemic made it worse , disrupting the mail and depleting the workforce as employees became sick or had to take leave .
The pandemic and DeJoy ’ s moves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s capacity to deliver millions more mail-in ballots in November .
The USPS had also warned 46 states and Washington , DC , that it could not guarantee all ballots would be delivered in time to be counted .
The USPS does have the capacity to handle surges of mail , and even if millions more Americans vote by mail this year , it will probably still be less volume than what the Postal Service sees during the holidays .
But the coronavirus crisis and operational changes at the USPS raised questions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feared DeJoy was trying to sabotage the agency .
In response to this pressure , DeJoy has said he was suspending any operational changes until after the election “ to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.
” He also assured lawmakers that he will prioritize mail-in voting , but he will not reverse any changes ( such as bringing sorting machines back online ) .
But when it comes to you , the voter , just focus on doing everything early .
Even if the USPS were working perfectly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the deadline to request a ballot or mail in your vote , you ’ re probably too late .
Experts said the best practice is to mail your ballot back immediately , but if you insist on procrastinating , definitely give yourself at least a full week before the deadline .
And do check the deadline carefully ; some states require ballots to be received before or by Election Day , while others require a postmark before or by that date .
And some states with postmark rules have tIght deadlines for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ voters ] have an opportunity to vote earlier in the system , that increases the chance that it ’ ll get there on time and be processed properly , ” Quentin Palfrey , chair of the Voter Protection Corps , told me .
“ And just like with any other important piece of mail , you ’ re better off if you put it in the mail earlier .
That ’ s the system as a whole.
” However : If you ’ re really worried about the USPS , just because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always mean you must literally mail it back .
Voters can drop off ballots at their local election boards .
Many states and localities offer secure drop boxes , and voters can often drop off ballots at polling places .
( At the risk of sounding like a broken record : To find out what options are available to you , check with your local election board . )
Still , every year , not just in 2020 , many mail-in ballots get rejected .
This is not , as President Trump would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraud .
That ’ s quite rare , including in mail-in voting .
Sometimes it is because ballots arrive too late to be counted .
Other times , voters just make innocent mistakes , like forgetting to sign their ballot or accidentally damaging it .
“ We ’ ve known that a fair number of absentee ballots get rejected because they ’ re late or missing a signature or the person didn ’ t check a box on the envelope — for a variety of seemingly minor technical things , ” David C. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the University of Missouri St. Louis , told me .
“ When only 5 percent of the people vote absentee , that ’ s a small , manageable amount , ” he said .
“ But when you ramp up absentee voting so that now maybe half or more people vote absentee , now we ’ re talking a bigger number of voters who might effectively be disenfranchised.
” This is a real concern , so voters do need to carefully read the instructions .
If you ’ re confused about any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your local election office .
Doing everything early does not mean this should be a rush job .
Becker said mail-in voting is a great option , “ but it also requires voters to really read the ballot envelope carefully to return it on time and to make sure they don ’ t make any mistakes in filling out the ballot .
And some voters might not feel comfortable in that.
” About 40 states also allow you to track your ballot , kind of like how you track an Amazon or UPS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gives you varies ( which means — yep , you know the drill — check ! )
, but some can alert you when your ballot is printed and once it ’ s mailed to you .
You can also follow its return journey : when election officials receive it , and sometimes whether your ballot has been counted or rejected .
And if it is rejected , some states have ways for you to remedy that so your vote can be counted .
“ That ’ s another reason to turn your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University of Georgia ’ s Hood told me , “ because if there is a problem , most states have what ’ s called a ‘ cure process ’ whereby you can fix the problem — like I forgot to sign my security envelope or my absentee ballot .
There is a way to fix that.
” Experts also emphasized that , at any stage of the process , if something goes awry , call your local board of elections .
That ’ s what they ’ re there for .
If you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get one , call .
If you are confused about a deadline or rule , call .
Problems are going to arise , but they ’ re going to be much easier to resolve in mid-October than , say , on November 2 .
• Check your state ’ s rules .
If you are eligible to vote by mail , review the deadlines and make sure they work for you .
• If your state does not automatically send you a ballot or ballot application , request a ballot as soon as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your ballot , if possible .
• Once you get your ballot , read the instructions .
Call your local election officials if you have any questions .
Fill out your ballot carefully .
In several states , you may need a witness .
• Decide how you ’ re going to get it back to election officials .
If you ’ re putting it in the mail , do it as soon as possible .
If you plan to drop it off , check what locations might be available in your state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as possible .
• If you request a ballot and don ’ t get one , call your local election officials .
• If you plan to vote by mail but you ’ re afraid you might not meet the deadline , call your election officials and see what your other options are .
What about voting in person ?
Voting in person is still going to be an option on Election Day .
The decision about voting in person in the pandemic is ultimately a personal one .
There are always risks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are taking steps to make in-person voting as safe as possible .
Polling locations around the country are likely going to implement social distancing measures and will likely require personal protective equipment for poll workers .
Expect lots of disinfectant , hand sanitizer , and even extra pens .
Some sports teams have offered up their local arenas to give voters plenty of space .
Ideally , the primaries gave local officials a test run on how to work safely , securely , and swiftly .
But if you ’ re planning to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ applies : Do it early .
About 40 states offer some form of early in-person voting ( see a recent mobile-friendly map ) .
The dates and rules vary by state and county , so check them .
Some states have changed their rules — Texas , for example , extended its early voting by six days because of Covid-19 — and polling stations change year to year , so check all that now .
“ Once you ’ ve decided what method you want to vote , the next step is do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ In almost every state , some form of early voting is available .
If you decide to vote in person , go vote early.
” • Decide whether you feel comfortable voting in person .
Check with your election board if you want more information about safety protocols .
This is also going to vary state by state , county by county .
You may want to vote early .
But don ’ t expect early results .
Just because you vote early , that doesn ’ t mean election officials are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not going to find out who won on election night .
Probably not the morning after the election , either .
“ That ’ s just not a realistic expectation this year , and maybe not anymore , with more and more people voting absentee , ” the University of Missouri St. Louis ’ s Kimball said .
While this is less of an issue in some states out West that have robust mail-in voting systems , many states are doing this for the first time and will never have experienced this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballots is a much more labor-intensive process .
“ It just takes longer , literally , to process an absentee or by-mail ballot .
Even taking it out of the envelope , separating , unfolding it .
I mean , all that just takes time , ” Hood said .
But not having results right away is not a bad thing — the opposite , in fact .
As Myrna Perez , director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice , told me , there could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We want states to give voters until the last possible minute to drop off their mail-in ballot .
We want to be able to correct glitches and technical errors , and to give voters the chance to fix a mail-in ballot if it ’ s been rejected .
We want to be able to do things like audits — verifying the vote count with paper ballots , say — if needed .
All of that takes time .
Add to this the unprecedented changes the pandemic has brought : States are overhauling their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to recruit and train poll workers .
They need to buy personal protective equipment .
“ There are more changes in this election cycle , with more concern about the pandemic , and more enthusiasm about voting , all coming together at the same time , more than we ’ ve ever seen before , ” Becker , with the Center for Innovation & Election Research , said .
“ So we ’ ve got more voters , fewer poll workers , fewer polling sites , and strained resources.
” The federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though : namely , providing resources to states and localities so they can safely and effectively administer elections , and to help communicate any changes in election rules to their voters .
The HEROES ACT , the House Democrats ’ $ 3 trillion stimulus bill , included $ 3.6 billion for state and local governments to prepare and plan for elections .
But the talks on that bill have stalled in the Senate , and that ’ s where it remains .
“ There is no amount of money that will be wasted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ Even if it were at the last minute .
There ’ s so much disruption and changes that are happening to our elections .
Letting folks know good information about the who , what , when , where , why , and how of voting will be money well spent.
” Voting early is good for you — and for democracy Voting , with or without the pandemic , has always had its problems in the United States .
There are long lines at polling stations .
Voting machines break @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen .
And the pandemic will exacerbate them .
States that have never done universal vote-by-mail are about to implement it for the first time .
Shortages in poll workers might mean fewer polling stations and longer lines .
The voting process might take more time because of social distancing and disinfecting .
So basically , Americans can ’ t all vote at the last minute if we want our democracy to work .
“ If you want to vote by mail , the earlier you get it in , the more it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
If you ’ re voting in person , and if you vote early , if there ’ s a big glitch , you can go back , ” Perez said .
Some people might not have made up their minds yet on whom to vote for , and they may not until Election Day .
But if you have made up your mind — and if you know there is nothing at all that Joe Biden or Donald Trump ( or the congressional candidates on the ballot ! )
could do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , vote early if you can .
It ’ s not just to guarantee that your vote counts .
It ’ s also to help all of your fellow Americans who are busy , have inflexible work schedules , or are late deciders , wafflers , and swing voters who have every right to cast their ballot when they ’ re certain of their choice .
It would also help all those procrastinators out there ( you know who you are ) .
Because voting early , Perez said , has a smoothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for everyone else .
If voting is spaced out over days , for example , and everyone goes at different times , then there won ’ t be that crush of ballots or crowds .
If there are glitches , it will affect fewer people , making it easier to correct .
It also helps protect against other voting concerns , like misinformation or even foreign meddling .
As Becker pointed out , those online propaganda efforts tend to have a maximum impact the closer they happen to Election Day — when there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debunk , and the window of time narrows to the point where if someone is deterred from voting , they won ’ t have another chance .
If you ’ ve planned and voted early , you ’ re going to be less susceptible to Russian trolls .
And if we all vote early , well , then we ’ ll all be less susceptible .
Think of it a little bit like mask-wearing , but for democracy .
Planning and voting early offers you more confidence that your vote counted , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the more likely other voters participate in — and poll workers and election officials manage — a much more efficient and fair election for everyone .
And everyone can be a little more confident that their vote counted .
“ Not only does doing things early maximize the chance that your ballot will be successfully processed and counted , it maximizes the chance everybody ’ s ballot will be successfully processed and counted , because you ’ re allowing election officials to spread out the work over more time , ” Becker said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patriotic thing to get this done early.
” Correction , August 27 : An earlier version of the vote-by-mail map mischaracterized New Jersey ’ s and Montana ’ s rules .
New Jersey will send ballots to all registered voters ; Montana is allowing counties to decide whether to send mail-in ballots .
In the spring , we launched a program asking readers for financial contributions to help keep Vox free for everyone , and we set a goal of reaching 20,000 contributors .
Well , you helped us blow past that .
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The presidential election is underway, and here’s what America is dealing with: a raging pandemic, a crisis at the United States Postal Service, the threat of foreign meddling, and lots of misinformation, including from the president’s Twitter account.
All of this raises a serious question: How can you make sure your vote will count in 2020?
Voting in the middle of a pandemic was always going to look different. For those who choose to vote in person, voters and poll workers will likely have to social distance and wear masks. A lot of people might forgo in-person voting altogether; the number of Americans voting by mail is expected to double compared to 2016.
And then came the controversy at the United States Postal Service. A series of cost-cutting measures sparked delays in mail delivery, which critics feared could undermine the USPS’s ability to sort and deliver ballots in time to be counted, potentially disenfranchising millions of voters. The USPS has since suspended these changes, and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy assured lawmakers in August that the November election is his “number one priority.”
But primary season amid the Covid-19 pandemic didn’t exactly go smoothly. The Washington Post reported that some half a million mail-in ballots were rejected in the primaries, a combination of late delivery and voter error.
All this is eroding faith in the exercise of democracy this November — and, potentially, in the election results themselves.
The United States’ voting system had significant problems before the pandemic and will after, unless there’s reform. There should be. But that’s not going to happen in time for November 3. Indeed, people are already voting in many states.
So here’s a guide on how voters can better navigate the election and, in the process, make the voting system better for everyone. The biggest takeaway: Don’t wait.
“If you do you want to simplify it down to the easiest thing, it’s two words: Plan early,” David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Innovation & Election Research, told me. “That’s it, that’s everything.”
Make a plan, and do it early
There’s been a lot of talk about making a “voting plan.”
“Make a plan right now for how you are going to get involved and vote,” former President Barack Obama said during his address at the Democratic National Convention. “Do it as early as you can, and tell your family and friends how they can vote, too.”
There is one guiding principle to this plan, and you have maybe guessed it: Do everything — everything, everything, everything — early.
The very first step is the most critical: Make sure you can vote. Find out if you are registered. Even if you think you are, you can double-check and make sure your information is up to date. Do this now at your state or local election website, which you can look up here.
Seriously, do it right now. Some registration deadlines have already passed, and others are coming soon, and this may be your last chance.
(Note: We’ve included some voting rules maps below, but the rules can change. The best way to find information and deadlines for voting is with your state or local election board, which, again, you can track down here.)
Since you’re now hanging out on the web page belonging to your area’s election officials, it’s probably worth checking all the voting deadlines and requirements. That can help you decide which way you can and want to vote: by mail or in person.
Registration checklist:
Check your registration. If you haven’t registered, do it now.
If any information is inaccurate or out of date, update it now. Find out the details and the voting registration deadlines on your local board of elections website.
Decide how you want to vote and review the deadlines for each. This will broadly be voting by mail or voting in person. If you aren’t sure yet which you want to do, read on for some things to think about when making that decision.
Should I vote by mail? If you can and you want to, you need to do it early.
Many more states are going to offer voters the option to send in their ballots this year. Some states are sending ballots to every registered voter — either because they’ve been doing it that way for a long time or they’ve adopted these policies because of Covid-19. In total, nine states (plus Washington, DC) are mailing ballots to all eligible voters: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.
About 35 other states will allow voters to mail in absentee ballots without having to give a reason, or will accept Covid-19 as an excuse. Some of those states, like Delaware, are sending everyone applications for mail-in ballots. In others, you must request a ballot directly from your local election office. There are still a handful of states where you must cite a specific reason for voting absentee: Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas.
Maybe you’re thinking: Okay, I can vote by mail, but should I? What about all this stuff about the post office? And all these ballots getting rejected?
The bottom line: If you’re going to rely on the mail to vote, do everything early. That means request your ballot right away if you need to request one. And when you get it, fill it out and mail it back as soon as possible.
“Despite all the talk and hullabaloo about the post office, what’s going to happen — as long as you allow enough time — your ballot should get there,” Trey Hood, director of the Survey Research Center at the School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia, told me.
That hullabaloo mostly has to do with the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a Trump ally and donor appointed in June. Since he arrived, the USPS has rolled out cost-cutting measures that generated serious lag times in the mail. As Recode’s Adam Clark Estes reported, those measures included a major staff shake-up at the agency, limiting overtime, scaling back the number of trips mail trucks could take each day, and decommissioning sorting machines, which are used to sort millions of pieces of flat mail per hour, including ballots.
DeJoy distanced himself from some of the changes, saying that some predate his arrival, but he has defended others as necessary to keep the Postal Service sustainable in the long term. The Postal Service has for years faced serious financial problems, and the coronavirus pandemic made it worse, disrupting the mail and depleting the workforce as employees became sick or had to take leave.
Related How to vote by mail in 2020
The pandemic and DeJoy’s moves led to legitimate fears about the USPS’s capacity to deliver millions more mail-in ballots in November. The USPS had also warned 46 states and Washington, DC, that it could not guarantee all ballots would be delivered in time to be counted.
The USPS does have the capacity to handle surges of mail, and even if millions more Americans vote by mail this year, it will probably still be less volume than what the Postal Service sees during the holidays. But the coronavirus crisis and operational changes at the USPS raised questions from Democrats and voting groups, who feared DeJoy was trying to sabotage the agency.
In response to this pressure, DeJoy has said he was suspending any operational changes until after the election “to avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.” He also assured lawmakers that he will prioritize mail-in voting, but he will not reverse any changes (such as bringing sorting machines back online).
But when it comes to you, the voter, just focus on doing everything early. Even if the USPS were working perfectly, if you wait until right up to the deadline to request a ballot or mail in your vote, you’re probably too late.
Experts said the best practice is to mail your ballot back immediately, but if you insist on procrastinating, definitely give yourself at least a full week before the deadline. And do check the deadline carefully; some states require ballots to be received before or by Election Day, while others require a postmark before or by that date. And some states with postmark rules have tight deadlines for receipt near Election Day.
“If [voters] have an opportunity to vote earlier in the system, that increases the chance that it’ll get there on time and be processed properly,” Quentin Palfrey, chair of the Voter Protection Corps, told me. “And just like with any other important piece of mail, you’re better off if you put it in the mail earlier. That’s the system as a whole.”
However: If you’re really worried about the USPS, just because you get a mail-in ballot does not always mean you must literally mail it back. Voters can drop off ballots at their local election boards. Many states and localities offer secure drop boxes, and voters can often drop off ballots at polling places. (At the risk of sounding like a broken record: To find out what options are available to you, check with your local election board.)
Still, every year, not just in 2020, many mail-in ballots get rejected. This is not, as President Trump would have you believe, because of voter fraud. That’s quite rare, including in mail-in voting. Sometimes it is because ballots arrive too late to be counted. Other times, voters just make innocent mistakes, like forgetting to sign their ballot or accidentally damaging it.
“We’ve known that a fair number of absentee ballots get rejected because they’re late or missing a signature or the person didn’t check a box on the envelope — for a variety of seemingly minor technical things,” David C. Kimball, a voting expert and professor at the University of Missouri St. Louis, told me.
“When only 5 percent of the people vote absentee, that’s a small, manageable amount,” he said. “But when you ramp up absentee voting so that now maybe half or more people vote absentee, now we’re talking a bigger number of voters who might effectively be disenfranchised.”
This is a real concern, so voters do need to carefully read the instructions. If you’re confused about any step of the process, call up your local election office. Doing everything early does not mean this should be a rush job. Becker said mail-in voting is a great option, “but it also requires voters to really read the ballot envelope carefully to return it on time and to make sure they don’t make any mistakes in filling out the ballot. And some voters might not feel comfortable in that.”
Many states or counties allow you to track your ballot now, kind of like how you track an Amazon or UPS package. How much information your state gives you varies (which means — yep, you know the drill — check!), but some can alert you when your ballot is printed and once it’s mailed to you. You can also follow its return journey: when election officials receive it, and sometimes whether your ballot has been counted or rejected. And if it is rejected, some states have ways for you to remedy that so your vote can be counted.
“That’s another reason to turn your absentee ballot in early,” the University of Georgia’s Hood told me, “because if there is a problem, most states have what’s called a ‘cure process’ whereby you can fix the problem — like I forgot to sign my security envelope or my absentee ballot. There is a way to fix that.”
Experts also emphasized that, at any stage of the process, if something goes awry, call your local board of elections. That’s what they’re there for. If you request a ballot and don’t get one, call. If you are confused about a deadline or rule, call. Problems are going to arise, but they’re going to be much easier to resolve now in mid-October than, say, on November 2.
Voting by mail checklist:
Check your state’s rules. If you are eligible to vote by mail, review the deadlines and make sure they work for you.
If your state does not automatically send you a ballot or ballot application, request a ballot as soon as possible.
Sign up to track your ballot, if possible.
Once you get your ballot, read the instructions. Call your local election officials if you have any questions. Fill out your ballot carefully. In several states, you may need a witness.
Decide how you’re going to get it back to election officials. If you’re putting it in the mail, do it as soon as possible. If you plan to drop it off, check what locations might be available in your state, and also do that as soon as possible.
If you request a ballot and don’t get one, call your local election officials.
If you plan to vote by mail but you’re afraid you might not meet the deadline, call your election officials and see what your other options are.
What about voting in person?
Voting in person is still going to be an option on Election Day. The decision about voting in person in the pandemic is ultimately a personal one. There are always risks, but election officials around the country are taking steps to make in-person voting as safe as possible.
Polling locations around the country are likely going to implement social distancing measures and will likely require personal protective equipment for poll workers. Expect lots of disinfectant, hand sanitizer, and even extra pens. Some sports teams have offered up their local arenas to give voters plenty of space. Ideally, the primaries gave local officials a test run on how to work safely, securely, and swiftly.
But if you’re planning to vote in person, the same rule applies: Do it early. About 40 states offer some form of early in-person voting. The dates and rules vary by state and county, so check them. Some states have changed their rules — Texas, for example, extended its early voting by six days because of Covid-19 — and polling stations change year to year, so check all that now.
“Once you’ve decided what method you want to vote, the next step is do everything early,” Becker said. “In almost every state, some form of early voting is available. If you decide to vote in person, go vote early.”
Voting in person checklist:
Decide whether you feel comfortable voting in person. Check with your election board if you want more information about safety protocols. This is also going to vary state by state, county by county.
Check your polling location.
Vote early.
You may want to vote early. But don’t expect early results.
Just because you vote early, that doesn’t mean election officials are going to return the favor. Americans are not going to find out who won on election night. Probably not the morning after the election, either.
“That’s just not a realistic expectation this year, and maybe not anymore, with more and more people voting absentee,” the University of Missouri St. Louis’s Kimball said. While this is less of an issue in some states out West that have robust mail-in voting systems, many states are doing this for the first time and will never have experienced this volume of mail-in ballots.
Counting mail-in ballots is a much more labor-intensive process. “It just takes longer, literally, to process an absentee or by-mail ballot. Even taking it out of the envelope, separating, unfolding it. I mean, all that just takes time,” Hood said.
But not having results right away is not a bad thing — the opposite, in fact.
As Myrna Perez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told me, there could be very good reasons for the slowdown. We want states to give voters until the last possible minute to drop off their mail-in ballot. We want to be able to correct glitches and technical errors, and to give voters the chance to fix a mail-in ballot if it’s been rejected. We want to be able to do things like audits — verifying the vote count with paper ballots, say — if needed. All of that takes time.
Add to this the unprecedented changes the pandemic has brought: States are overhauling their systems to accommodate mail-in ballots. They need to recruit and train poll workers. They need to buy personal protective equipment.
“There are more changes in this election cycle, with more concern about the pandemic, and more enthusiasm about voting, all coming together at the same time, more than we’ve ever seen before,” Becker, with the Center for Innovation & Election Research, said. “So we’ve got more voters, fewer poll workers, fewer polling sites, and strained resources.”
The federal government could do more to help, though: namely, providing resources to states and localities so they can safely and effectively administer elections, and to help communicate any changes in election rules to their voters.
The HEROES ACT, the House Democrats’ $3 trillion stimulus bill, included $3.6 billion for state and local governments to prepare and plan for elections. But the talks on that bill have stalled in the Senate, and that’s where it remains.
“There is no amount of money that will be wasted on good public education,” Perez said. “Even if it were at the last minute. There’s so much disruption and changes that are happening to our elections. Letting folks know good information about the who, what, when, where, why, and how of voting will be money well spent.”
Voting early is good for you — and for democracy
Voting, with or without the pandemic, has always had its problems in the United States. There are long lines at polling stations. Voting machines break down.
We expect those things to happen. And the pandemic will exacerbate them. States that have never done universal vote-by-mail are about to implement it for the first time. Shortages in poll workers might mean fewer polling stations and longer lines. The voting process might take more time because of social distancing and disinfecting.
So basically, Americans can’t all vote at the last minute if we want our democracy to work. “If you want to vote by mail, the earlier you get it in, the more it’s likely to get processed on time. If you’re voting in person, and if you vote early, if there’s a big glitch, you can go back,” Perez said.
Some people might not have made up their minds yet on whom to vote for, and they may not until Election Day. But if you have made up your mind — and if you know there is nothing at all that Joe Biden or Donald Trump (or the congressional candidates on the ballot!) could do to sway you differently — then please, vote early if you can.
It’s not just to guarantee that your vote counts. It’s also to help all of your fellow Americans who are busy, have inflexible work schedules, or are late deciders, wafflers, and swing voters who have every right to cast their ballot when they’re certain of their choice. It would also help all those procrastinators out there (you know who you are).
Because voting early, Perez said, has a smoothing effect — not just for you but for everyone else. If voting is spaced out over days, for example, and everyone goes at different times, then there won’t be that crush of ballots or crowds. If there are glitches, it will affect fewer people, making it easier to correct.
It also helps protect against other voting concerns, like misinformation or even foreign meddling. As Becker pointed out, those online propaganda efforts tend to have a maximum impact the closer they happen to Election Day — when there’s less time to fact-check or debunk, and the window of time narrows to the point where if someone is deterred from voting, they won’t have another chance.
If you’ve planned and voted early, you’re going to be less susceptible to Russian trolls. And if we all vote early, well, then we’ll all be less susceptible.
Think of it a little bit like mask-wearing, but for democracy. Planning and voting early offers you more confidence that your vote counted, and the more people who do that, the more likely other voters participate in — and poll workers and election officials manage — a much more efficient and fair election for everyone. And everyone can be a little more confident that their vote counted.
“Not only does doing things early maximize the chance that your ballot will be successfully processed and counted, it maximizes the chance everybody’s ballot will be successfully processed and counted, because you’re allowing election officials to spread out the work over more time,” Becker said. “It’s a very patriotic thing to get this done early.”
Correction, August 27: An earlier version of the vote-by-mail map mischaracterized New Jersey’s and Montana’s rules. New Jersey will send ballots to all registered voters; Montana is allowing counties to decide whether to send mail-in ballots.