Russian meddling: are free and fair elections impossible?

Russia is being accused of orchestrating a sophisticated campaign to influence the presidential election in Mexico - the latest smear against Moscow following allegations involving the US presidential vote, the UK Brexit referendum, elections in France and Kenya, and Catalonia’s secession vote.

US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster claims there is evidence of “Russian meddling” in Mexican elections set for July, according to a video obtained by Mexican newspaper Reforma.

Although Russia denies the allegation, the claims illustrate the increasing fears about Russia’s use of advanced cyber tools to spread disinformation. The Czech Republic is worried that its own presidential election this week is the next target, the Financial Times reports, while Italy has started working with Facebook to help prevent “fake news” ahead of Italian elections on 4 March.

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So has the Kremlin negated the concept of free and fair elections? The Week examines the allegations and looks at possible solutions.

UK Brexit referendum

Damian Collins, chair of Britain’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, has given Facebook and Twitter a deadline of 18 January to hand over information about possible Russian misinformation campaigns linked to the 2016 Brexit vote.

While the UK government insists that Russian propaganda had “no direct successful influence” on the Brexit referendum outcome, a study by the Oxford Internet Institute identified 416 tweets about Brexit published by the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm with ties to the Kremlin. UK researchers do not yet have access to equivalent information from Facebook, “which may be more influential over public opinion than Twitter”, The Economist says, and “would almost certainly be part of any sophisticated propaganda operation”.

US presidential election

Did the Kremlin interfere in the US presidential race? US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin say no. Many others say yes.

US intelligence agencies claim Putin ordered actions aimed at interfering with the election, including the cybertheft of private data, the placement of propaganda against particular candidates, and general efforts to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, says fact-checking website PolitFact.

Two state-run Russian websites, RT and Sputnik International, acted as “conduits for misinformation”, says Newsweek, citing reports in the US intelligence community.

Catalonia’s separation vote

Spain’s struggle with Catalan separatists may have been exacerbated by Russian hackers engaged in a propaganda effort to divide Europe. The Spanish government-backed Elcano Royal Institute, in Madrid, says unidentified Russian “troll” accounts spread inflammatory messages and claims - some true, some false - on social media in the run-up to the 1 October independence referendum.

“Russia has a nationalist agenda, and it supports nationalist, populist movements in Europe because that serves to divide Europe,” senior analyst Mira Milosevich told Bloomberg.

According to Spanish newspaper El Pais, an influential tweet about the referendum posted by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange - who is still holed up in Equator’s London embassy - went viral as a result of activity on fake social media accounts.

Russia dismisses the claims as “hysteria”.

French election

Did RT and Sputnik interfere in the 2017 French presidential election?

Two days before the vote, “hackers leaked nine gigabytes of emails from candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign onto the web”, Wired reports. Although public evidence can’t definitively prove Russia’s involvement, National Security Agency director Michael Rogers suggested to Congress “that America’s most powerful cybersecurity agency has pinned at least some electoral interference on Moscow”, the website says.

Kenya's two elections

In an interview last September with National Public Radio (NPR), former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton drew comparisons between her election loss and the Kenyan election, which was eventually won by Uhuru Kenyatta after a second vote was held. Kenya’s Supreme Court annulled the first vote, after finding the process unfair and lacking in transparency.

Clinton said the US and Kenyan elections were both “a project of Cambridge Analytica”, a US-based data company at the centre of a growing controversy over the use of personal information to influence votes. There are problems with Clinton’s comparison, however. Concerns about the Kenyan election related to the transmission of the votes, not Cambridge Analytica.

“Still,” says The Washington Post, “her comments serve to highlight the growing role of large data companies, particularly Cambridge Analytica, in elections well beyond the United States and Europe.”

Cyber solutions?

Halting the flow of misinformation is notoriously difficult, but are there ways to combat the risk of election tampering?

France, Ireland and Germany have all either passed laws or are considering legislation aimed at blocking fabricated social media content.

The Czech Republic, meanwhile, has set up a Centre against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats, an interior ministry unit tasked with combating risks ranging from terrorism to state propaganda, the FT reports. The centre will offer analysis to government departments and target “fake news” - mainly via a Twitter feed - to debunk false stories.

The Washington Post argues that the key to strengthening cybersecurity in the US is better communication, more coordination at the individual, group and state levels, and new government regulations “mandating upgrades in cybersecurity for everyone and everything involved in the electoral process”. US senators introduced a bill in December to improve and streamline information about cyberthreats between state and federal entities, CBS News reports.

The social media giants may also have a role to play. Facebook turned over more than 3,000 suspicious adverts to the US House Intelligence Committee in October, claiming the ads were purchased by an organisation connected to Russian intelligence services during the 2016 election. Facebook is also planning to label ads as paid content so that it is clear to users who is behind the material, NPR reports.

It remains to be seen, however, whether it is enough to rely on social media to solve a problem that is, at least partly, of their own making.