Foreign Interference Can't Alter Election Results, Official Says

Nearly a month out from Election Day, the head of the nation's cybersecurity agency is forcefully reassuring Americans who have been swept into the chaotic churn of election disinformation and distrust that they will be able to feel confident in the outcome. State and local election officials have made so much progress in securing voting, ballot-counting, and other election infrastructure that the system is more robust than it has ever been, said Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. As a result, she said, there is no way Russia, Iran, or any other foreign adversary will be able to alter the results.

"Malicious actors, even if they tried, could not have an impact at scale such that there would be a material effect on the outcome of the election," Easterly told the AP in an interview Wednesday. Easterly's vouching for the election process comes as intelligence officials have warned of escalating efforts by foreign adversaries to influence voters, deepen partisan divides, and undermine faith in US elections. Her comments stand in contrast to the doubts millions of Americans, especially Republicans, have held since the 2020 election when Donald Trump refused to accept his loss. He has built on his false claims of vote rigging since then, setting the stage to claim the election has been stolen if he loses again this November, per the AP.

Recognizing that many Americans' confidence in elections "has been shaken," Easterly emphasized how prepared election officials are for emergencies, simple mistakes, and attacks—and how motivated they are to protect people's votes. Easterly pointed to layers of security and transparency, such as the paper record of votes in more than 97% of voting jurisdictions, as protections that will help verify the results. "Things will go wrong. There could be another storm. There could be a ransomware attack, a distributed denial of service attack," Easterly said. "These disruptions will create effects, but they will not impact the ability and the votes being cast or those votes being counted."

(More Election 2024 stories.)