By DAVID KLEPPER and CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hacking a local election system in the United States would not be easy and secretly altering votes on a scale massive enough to change the outcome of the presidential race it would be impossibleelection officials said, thanks to decentralized systems, paper records for nearly all ballots, exhaustive reviews, due process of law and decades of work by election officials, volunteers and American citizens.

But foreign actors and domestic extremist groups that want to interfere next week’s elections it can target a much weaker link: voters’ perceptions and emotions. Those intent on undermining faith in American democracy need not change a single vote if they can convince enough Americans do not trust the result.

It’s one possible scenario, especially for analysts and intelligence officials tasked with protecting America’s elections: An adversary tries to hack a state or local election system and then releases a document — perhaps a fake one or even material that’s publicly available — and suggests that it is evidence. of vote fraud.

Or, a video is created showing someone allegedly hacking a ballot scanner, voting machine or a state voter registration system. But it didn’t happen and it wouldn’t be true.

It’s called a perception hack, which may or may not include an actual breach of voting systems, but is made to appear as though it happened. In some cases, minor information can be stolen – enough to make a video look legitimate – but it doesn’t change the votes. A related threat involves fake images purported to show election workers destroying ballots.

In both cases, the goal is the same: to generate confusion, distrust and fear.

Governments at all levels have worked to strengthen electoral infrastructure in recent years. However, the human brain remains difficult to defend.

“I think it will almost certainly happen,” former CIA political analyst Adam Darrah said when discussing the risk of perception hacks.

Darrah, now vice president of information at cybersecurity company ZeroFox, said it’s much easier to mislead people into thinking election systems are vulnerable than to hack them. “It’s a way to induce panic. We are very resilient from a technical point of view. Our emotional resilience, our hypersensitivity, that’s still a challenge.”

Narrow margins of victory or delays in counting votes it could increase the risk of a perception hack fooling large numbers of voters, further polarizing the electorate, increasing the risk of political violence and potentially complicating the transfer of power in January.

Intelligence officials warned last week that Russia and IRAN can consider encouraging violent protests in the US after the election. The nation’s intelligence community and private analysts agree Kremlin supports former President Donald trump cardMoscow’s ultimate goal is to divide Americans and undermine the US support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.