Expanding Their Reach: Iranian Efforts to Interfere in the 2024 American Presidential Election
Ali Khamenei's visit to the exhibition of achievements of the IRGC Aerospace Force, 2023
Credit: Ali Khamenei
The 2024 American Presidential Election is fast approaching, highlighting political division and tension within the United States. This environment, exemplified by the race for the White House between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, has provided America’s adversaries with a golden opportunity. Forefront among those adversaries, the government of Iran has made numerous efforts to interfere and influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election.
The Iranian government is not new to interfering in foreign elections. There are several reports and indictments attributing election interference efforts to Iran. During the last American presidential race in 2020, the Iranian government led several efforts to impact the results of the election between former President Trump and now President Biden. Following the 2020 cycle, two Iranian nationals involved in a coordinated campaign to “intimidate” and “influence” American voters were indicted by the Department of Justice. These individuals obtained confidential voter information, utilizing it to intimidate and misinform voters in one American state. Additionally, the campaign spread false videos claiming the Democratic Party would exploit “serious security vulnerabilities” in the election. These attempts by these Iranian sponsored hackers attempted to build distrust in American democracy, throwing the United States into chaos.
These election interference attempts are just a snapshot of the Iranian government’s efforts to intervene in foreign elections. Iran has been reported to have interfered in the elections of Israel and the United Kingdom, while being suspected in other countries. These previous interventions, including the coordinated 2020 influence campaign, provide insight into the ongoing efforts by the Iranian government to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential race.
The 2024 Presidential contest will be wrought with foreign efforts to intervene in the American democratic process. Matthew Olsen, the head of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, has warned of an "onslaught of foreign election interference" from China, Russia, and Iran. Of this three-pronged effort, Iran is proving to be the most critical of the state-sponsored election intervention campaigns. An interagency statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) notes, “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting Presidential campaigns”. Both of these reports underline the severity of the threat posed by Iran on the democratic system in the United States.
The first major strategy of Iranian election interference can be described as attempting to compromise computer accounts of high-ranking and consequential officials, thus degrading trust in the security of the electoral process. There have been many reports of social engineering attacks against campaign officials of both parties being carried out by Iranian agents. One Iranian hacker group, Peach Sandstorm, with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compromised an account with access to county-level government systems in an unidentified swing state. Another hacker group with ties to the IRGC has continually targeted high-ranking presidential campaign officials with phishing emails, with the goal of compromising sensitive information. These various efforts to compromise the security of both presidential campaigns, along with government accounts in key battleground states, have the potential to create distrust among the American public in the people and systems behind the 2024 presidential contest. By threatening the foundations of the democratic system, the Iranian government is attempting to sow chaos surrounding the 2024 election results.
In addition to compromising computer accounts related to the 2024 election, Iranian agents have utilized cyber attacks to gain access to restricted information. In a more recent joint statement issued by the ODNI, FBI, and CISA, it was revealed that Iranian actors had sent “stolen, non-public” information from the Trump campaign to individuals associated with President Biden’s campaign. While the information was unsolicited and not-accepted by the individual, this attack represents a direct attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential race. This effort is a part of Iran’s greater “hack-and-leak” operation, which they have been collecting information for since 2020. By working as an illicit information broker, the Iranian government undermines the competitive spirit necessary in democratic elections.
The third area of concerning Iranian behavior comes from the state’s direct threatening of the life of former President Donald Trump. Individuals associated with the Trump campaign shared that the campaign was briefed by U.S Intelligence about “real and specific” threats against the former president by Iran. The efforts of the Iranian government to assassinate former President Trump have intensified in the previous months, demonstrating a major threat to American democracy. Despite these continuing threats, the two previous assassination attempts on Trump do not appear to be tied to Iran. While the threat to former President Trump’s life by Iran is not new following the U.S killing of General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, they are extremely concerning at the time of a contentious election. The threat and act of political violence undermines the promises of democracy. Although unlikely to come to fruition, this action by Tehran represents the most devastating potential.
The most concerning, and potentially most effective, election influence operation by the Iranian government is the systematic dissemination of disinformation to the American public. Iranian-linked influencers have begun preparing to impersonate social and political activists, with the goal of undermining information channels and creating chaos. The same group of influencers and activists, Sefid Flood, has carried out intimidation, doxing, and other violence campaigns, demonstrating a serious threat in the upcoming election. Numerous other groups linked to Iran have begun setting up fake news websites, catering to opposing audiences. Iranian agents have created websites targeting progressives, conservatives in Georgia, and Muslim voters in Detroit. These websites aim to become the news destination of susceptible audiences key to both presidential campaigns. Through covert means, the government of Iran is able to direct the news message in the United States, shaping the thoughts of voters. In addition to these covertly-ran news websites, the IRGC operates a large network of individuals who spread Tehran’s message across social media to an American audience. Disinformation campaigns pose the greatest threat to the 2024 Presidential race and the hardest to counter at a governmental level. These various information operations give the Iranian government direct influence over the thoughts of voters, crafting Iran’s desired outcome in the election.
Despite the mounting evidence against the Iranian government, they continue to dismiss the accusations against them. Iran’s Foreign Minister Nasser Kanaani accuses the United States of trying to distract the world from its own interference efforts in countries like Iran. This plays into the Iranian idea that their election interference operations are defensive, acting as a response to interference in their internal affairs. It is unsurprising that the Iranian government would not admit to violating the sovereignty of the United States, as that would open the country up to a barrage of consequences.
The American Presidential contest is not only being targeted by the Iranian government. Both Russia and China are taking part in influence operations targeting elections across the United States. An ODNI official stated in a press briefing that Russia is running an information campaign in favor of former President Trump, contrary to the Iranian operations in favor of Vice President Harris. In addition to Presidential election interference, both Russia and China are attempting to influence congressional and state races. This lower-level interference is something the Iranian government is not suspected to be doing. The Russian influence operations have a heavy use of Artificial Intelligence, creating fake content “of and about prominent U.S figures”. While Iranian influence operations have utilized AI, the government focuses less on video and image generation. Overall, the Russian threat of interference in American elections has been continuous since the 2016 election cycle.
While China and Russia, alongside other actors, pose a serious threat to the 2024 Presidential Election, the interference efforts by the Iranian government represent the largest risk. Russian efforts seem to focus on disinformation campaigns to build support for their preferred candidate, without much focus on tampering. However, the Iranian efforts are a mixture of both disinformation and direct interference, with the “hack-and-leak” strategy directly targeting both major campaigns. This continued threat of direct involvement by Iran makes it the largest threat to the security of the 2024 presidential election in the United States.
As the United States enters the final weeks of the presidential election cycle, it must seriously contend with the ongoing threat posed by the Iranian government's election interference and influence operations. The American government needs to work closely with campaign officials from both parties to strengthen the cybersecurity infrastructure they have, protecting against Iranian hacker’s intrusions. Most importantly, the American public must be diligent when viewing information online. The practice of fact-checking, verifying sources, and diversifying news sources is more important than ever before. Interference by the Iranian government is part of a broader foreign intervention campaign against the 2024 American presidential election, seeking to deepen the political division in the United States and undermine the country’s democratic values.
