Majority Expect Foreign Election Interference

A completed Senate report this week confirmed that the Russian government actively engaged in election interference in favor of President Trump in 2016. The report also warned of repeated interference by Russia in upcoming elections. A new survey shows how many Americans now expect some form of election interference to occur again before the November presidential election.

In a new survey from Pew Research Center, 75 percent of U.S. adults say Russia or another foreign government will attempt to influence the upcoming presidential election. That’s up from 67 percent in October of last year.

Both Democrats and Republicans believe some form of foreign interference will occur during this election cycle. A wide majority of 88 percent of Democrats said a foreign government will interfere, while 62 percent of Republicans said they same.

An assortment of interference tactics have been traced back to Russian-backed operatives during the 2016 presidential election. These range from in-person deals with U.S. political advisers, exchanging favors in return for classified information on competition. Social media is another arena used for election interference that has been tied to Russia. By creating and managing thousands (perhaps millions) of fake social media accounts, operatives can more-or-less effectively spread misinformation and sow seeds of mistrust in certain candidates or in the election systems as a whole.