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By Micah McCartney
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The country's adversaries are stepping up efforts to influence the U.S. election, including down-ballot races, intelligence officials told the press on Monday.
"We've continued to see actors ramp up their activities as we get closer to Election Day," Voice of America quoted one anonymous intelligence official as saying. These actors "recognize that individuals are already voting— Americans are already voting—and operations can have a greater impact as we get closer," they added.
Officials said China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba have sought to "launder their narratives" into election discourse, as well as aggravate divisions among Americans through hot-button issues such as immigration.
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Though four weeks remain before Election Day, more than 16 million Americans had requested mail-in ballots or opted for early in-person voting as of Tuesday, according to an NBC News poll sourced from state officials and market research firm TargetSmart.
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One official said agencies have been privately briefing candidates for president, congress and local elections about foreign influence efforts.
More of these notifications have already been carried out than during any past election, according to another official, who said suspected cases of foreign influence campaigns against public officials have seen a "more than threefold increase."
China-linked actors were said to have directly interfered in "tens" of down-ballot races, particularly when it comes to issues that most concern the Chinese Communist Party, Reuters reported.
One of these issues is neighboring Taiwan, which China has vowed to someday annex, through force if necessary. The democratic island draws broad support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, and Washington has for decades committed to providing it with weapons "of a defensive character" under the Taiwan Relations Act.
Beijing has previously denied involvement in such activities, which would violate its stated foreign policy of non-interference.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., told Newsweek the intelligence reports are "groundless speculation."
"China is not interested in the U.S. congressional elections, and we have no intention and will not interfere in it," he said. "Meanwhile, we hope that the U.S. side will not make accusations against China in the election."
Pengyu said recent improvements in the Washington-Beijing relationship are viewed positively by the global community and called on the U.S. to cease its "strategic anxiety" about China and instead pursue healthy, stable relations with it.
Meanwhile, Russia and Iran have been focused on shaping the views of the U.S. electorate," the intelligence officials said.
Moscow's efforts have reportedly been to drive down support for Ukraine, which is struggling against invading Russian forces in the eastern part of the country. Iran has been covertly seeking to drum up support for Democratic candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris, according to officials.
They believe Cuba has concentrated on giving a boost to its preferred candidates by swaying Spanish-speaking voters on social media.
Newsweek reached out to the FBI and Russian Foreign Ministry with an emailed request for comment.
The news follows a report released last month by social network analysis firm Graphika that detailed a Chinese "spamouflage" operation attempting to sow division in U.S. social media spaces through fake accounts.
Update 10/9/2024, 8:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from the Chinese Embassy.
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