Kat Duffy is a senior digital and cyber policy fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Jacob Ware is a researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations.

With less than a week before the 2024 presidential election, physical and digital threats to the US election infrastructure remain a risk. Already, actors hostile to the workings of liberal democracy have worked to disrupt the free exercise of the upcoming United States election, perhaps never more evident than an assassination attempt that narrowly avoided killing former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump. However, it is vital that such threats are properly contextualized to avoid either exaggerating or minimizing the challenges facing American democracy.

Are there security issues heading into Election Day on November 5?

The United States is in a heightened threat environment heading into Election Day, with several extremist factions threatening to disrupt the election process. Two prominent ones assassination attempts on former President Trump took place against a backdrop of countless disrupted plots and a record number of threats to public officialsbecause violent political rhetoric raises the stakes. both foreign opponents and Salafi-jihadi extremists sought to take advantage of this troubled moment by inspiring or launching acts of violence in the United States.

The days (or weeks) following the election could prove to be the most important, especially if no clear winner for the presidency has emerged. Such uncertainty gives conspiracy theories more room to develop and circulate and can significantly increase political unrest or even violence within local communities. In 2020, for example, vote counting centers in swing counties and cities — including Arizona’s Maricopa County, Philadelphia and Detroit — were targeted by extremist protests or terrorist plots.

Violent far-right extremists are likely the biggest threat this year, given the precedent of violence on January 6, 2021 in a political transition, as well as violent rhetoric repeatedly issued by the Republican Party candidate. The Department of Homeland Security even warned that the “increased risk” of violence could include extremists trying to sabotage ballots — a step that, if successful, could plunge the country into a constitutional crisis. Recent arson attacks on ballot boxes in Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, remain unresolved. Meanwhile, anti-government militia groups remain active on Facebook – the social media platform appears to have enabled its artificial intelligence (AI) systems to automatically generate pages for groups – and to continue to coordinate on the platform to conduct vigilante monitoring of ballot boxes to prevent “ballot stuffing,” a move more suited to voter intimidation than to shed light on electoral irregularities.

The unrest could continue until Inauguration Day on January 20, 2025, and beyond.

How bad was outside interference in this year’s election cycle?

Despite reports of interference attempt (PDF) by China, Iran and Russia, the evidence indicates that the electoral process itself remains safe and secure from foreign interference as elections approach. Intelligence officials continue to provide regular public briefings to clarify the threatsmaintaining a trend of rapid declassification in the interest of filling information gaps susceptible to conspiracy theories with credible, verified information.

Although concern about a possible cyber attack on or near Election Day continues to be high for state and local officials, domestic extremists attempting to undermine elections by intimidating poll workers, engaging in political violence, or disrupting the voting process is probably a more significant immediate threat than foreign interference. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency has repeatedly emphasized the cybersecurity benefits of decentralized election infrastructure in the United States; the lack of a single point of attack makes a comprehensive cyber attack on the US election much more difficult to achieve.

2024 was the year of the elections. What lessons can the United States learn from other countries about how threats to the information environment have evolved?

That PREDICTEDthe global election supercycle has provided valuable insights into how the US electoral landscape will evolve in 2024. Disinformation campaign in Bangladesh, Serbia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe in 2023 and 2024, they sought to undermine electoral confidence in those countries by attacking institutions, intimidating officials, and fueling narratives of foreign interference or fraud. These campaigns particularly targeted women in prominent political roles.

The rise of generative AI has added a new tool to these operations, which often involve bots, fake news sites and collaboration with state-controlled media to distort the information landscape. Despite this, the impact on the election results seems to have remained minimal.

The United States has experienced similar tactics, both through (apparently) domestic campaigns of the pro-Trump bots operates on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, and through foreign influence operations such as the creation of Russian fake news sites. Meanwhile, the American public’s confidence in the integrity of the 2024 election not only continues to divide between parties, but also demonstrates a worryingly low lack of trust in the electoral process overall. In a survey, only 1 in 5 Trump supporters say they will trust the election results if he loses, while 3 in 5 supporters of Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris say they will trust the results regardless.

What have the authorities learned four years ago and what still needs to be done?

The main lesson learned by Commission report of January 6 (PDF) was that US law enforcement agencies, particularly the US Capitol Police, underestimated the extent to which Trump could aggravate his supporters and mobilize them to march on the US Capitol. Given that Trump has repeatedly denigrated the integrity of both US elections and law enforcement agencies, security services must prepare for the Republican nominee to once again incite unrest if he fails to win the election. A recent one Pew poll found that only 24% of Americans believe Trump will publicly concede an electoral defeat — he has yet to concede defeat in 2020.

After the catastrophic security failures displayed on January 6, it is unlikely that law enforcement and intelligence agencies will be caught off guard again. The Department of Homeland Security recently designated January 6 as a special national security event, establishing the US Secret Service as the lead agency and providing a range of new resources. While this step will ensure that security services implement a more robust deterrent posture on that day, it will not deter violence at other important ceremonial dates linked to the election cycle, nor will it support local partners dealing with low-level unrest . Moreover, the Secret Service continued organizational challenges and the protection failure earlier this year may have diminished his credibility to lead a strong response.

Political leaders, together with their counterparts in civil society, must take a responsible approach to recognize the trust deficits and credibility gaps that continue to define this election and voters’ view of the integrity of the electoral process. Educating the American people about the integrity and resilience of the election infrastructure to “pre-empt” voting conspiracy theories and reject any narratives that would support political violence or intimidation of poll workers, candidates, and voters will be essential. for both parties in the days before and after the elections. Safe and secure elections need to be protected from foreign interference this year, but not as much as they need to be protected from domestic action.

This paper represents only the views and opinions of the authors. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan think tank and publisher and does not take institutional positions on policy matters.