US says no evidence foreign states impacted 2018 midterm elections

WASHINGTON: Foreign meddling and hacking attempts had "no material impact" on the US midterm congressional elections last year, according to a high-level review by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments on Tuesday.

A summary of the classified report did not confirm various reports from state and local security officials during the campaign that foreign actors tried to break into voting systems and databases in multiple states.

But the two departments said they concluded that "there is no evidence to date that any identified activities of a foreign government or foreign agent had a material impact on the integrity or security of election infrastructure or political/campaign infrastructure used in the 2018 midterm elections."

The US government intensified its scrutiny of the vote after concluding that the Russian government ran a concerted operation during the 2016 presidential campaign to hack into political party computers and voting systems and to influence voters via social media disinformation.

US intelligence has concluded that, while voting systems were not significantly impacted during 2016, the social media campaign and the hacking of Democratic Party computers bolstered the campaign of Republican candidate Donald Trump.

US security officials have said that they forsee a potent interference threat from foreign governments, including Russia, China and Iran, in the 2020 presidential election.

US federal investigators are probing whether President Donald Trump’s election campaign colluded with Moscow to win the 2016 election. Trump denies any collusion, and Moscow has also denied involvement.

US intelligence officials warned last week that Russia and China are already targeting the 2020 presidential election. After winning the 2016 election through electoral votes and despite losing the popular vote, Trump formed a voter fraud committee, accusing Democrats of getting undocumented immigrants to vote in favor of his rival, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

A new study shows that democracy in the United States has experienced a significant decline under Trump, who keeps attacking people’s democratic freedoms on a regular basis. Freedom House, a US-based non-governmental group, warned in its latest report on Monday that US democratic freedoms were eroding at rates similar to countries where democracy had been ultimately overtaken by authoritarianism.