The 2020 election: 4 threats to anticipate
Written By: AMANDA ROBERT
Suzanne Spaulding wasn’t surprised when a report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in January 2017 found that Russia’s efforts to interfere in the previous year’s presidential election were part of a larger plan to undermine democracy in the United States.
“It had been going on long before the election and would continue,” says Spaulding, the former undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, who worked with federal authorities and state and local officials to secure election infrastructure in 2016.
“People kept saying the Russians will be back, but, in fact, the Russians never left. They are engaged in this broader campaign to weaken our democracy in a variety of ways.”
Spaulding, now senior adviser for homeland security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., and a liaison to the ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, expects that campaign to continue ahead of and during the 2020 presidential election. She joined several experts in sharing with the ABA Journal some potential threats from malicious foreign actors and how to counter them.
1. Entire election process could be targeted. Since it’s possible that someone could hack into the election system to change votes that then change the election outcome, Spaulding says federal authorities and local and state officials should work to secure each step of the process, including voter registration, ballot counting and election results reporting. As a board member of Defending Digital Campaigns, she is also helping to identify cybersecurity providers who can provide services to political parties and campaigns for free or at a discount. “We recognize that campaigns, particularly congressional campaigns, are usually shoestring operations,” she says. “They are often run out of someone’s kitchen or living room, and we know they can be targets.”
2. Disinformation about candidates or election will be circulated. Adav Noti, senior director, trial litigation and chief of staff at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., and Spaulding agree that a more significant threat is disinformation spread by malicious actors to manipulate the public’s confidence in the ele…(Cont.)