According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there are no threats to U.S. voting systems for the midterm elections coming up next month.
Officials from the F.B.I. said in a briefing Monday that they have been closely monitoring potential threats and have found no credible evidence that any will impact the election, reported both Bloomberg and USA Today. However, the bureau is concerned about online misinformation.
“Messages that the result can’t be trusted are being amplified online, with Russia the most aggressive influence among foreign foes, the FBI said,” per the Bloomberg report. It added that this messaging is “being pushed in states across the country by political candidates and others in the U.S.” and “is being seized on by foreign adversaries to sow division.”
These adversaries include China and Iran in addition to Russia, and they have been able to leverage existing U.S. content questioning election integrity, said Bloomberg. For example, the “Russian government has seized on U.S. policy on Moscow’s war against Ukraine, which includes military aid to the besieged country, highlighting the impact the conflict is having on energy prices,” Bloomberg said.
In the U.S., former Republican President Donald Trump has made claims about election fraud for years, and these claims played a role in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Since Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, domestic threats to election officials have also become a concern for the U.S.
In an August update on the Justice Department’s Elections Threats Task Force, it has reviewed more than 1,000 contacts reported as hostile or harassing by the election community. Of those, 11% met the threshold for criminal investigation.
“While many of the contacts were often hostile, harassing, and abusive towards election officials, they did not include a threat of unlawful violence,” said the Justice Department. Most of the potentially criminal threats involved election workers in Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin, where the 2020 presidential election vote was close, said USA Today.
FBI Director Christopher Wray “expressed deep concern for rising violence driven by an array of domestic grievances,” in August, said the outlet. He said that election and politically motivated violence has become an almost daily phenomenon reflecting a deep divide in the nation.
“I feel like every day I'm getting briefed on somebody throwing a Molotov cocktail at someone for some issue,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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