In a bright, high-rise building on the edge of Bethesda, Maryland, a thousand employees from dozens of US spy agencies gather in a vast office complex to decipher and defeat surreptitious efforts by foreign governments to rig elections. They are the staff of the new Foreign Malign Influence Center, established in 2022 to protect this year’s presidential election from interference.
As the center’s new executive director, Shelby Pierson, prepared to brief bipartisan leaders of intelligence committees about her analysis of foreign threats to election integrity, reports of her assessment were leaked to Capitol Hill and made public. As a result, President Trump exploded in fury, tried to get her fired and threatened to stop the briefings altogether.
While the administration has a strong interest in seeing fair elections, it does not have the authority to set or oversee election rules, or supervise state and local officials who run them. In the past, federal protection for fair elections was provided by restrictive voting laws (some of which have been ruled unconstitutional) and a robust federal response to disinformation and racial tensions.
Interference with elections can include tampering with ballots or voter registration databases, but it can also involve manipulating public opinion by spreading false narratives and information warfare. As digital technology becomes more advanced, it can amplify these false narratives and make them harder to detect and counter. This can polarize voters, sow distrust in the electoral system and undermine trust in democracy itself.