With 19 electoral votes, 7% of the 270 needed for victory, Pennsylvania may be the key to today's Presidential election. Polls indicate that neither candidate -- former President Donald Trump for the Republicans, or Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democrats -- has a lead in the poll sample exceeding 1% or 2%, well within the statistical margin of error. The race is a dead heat. Moreover, national polls suggest that the percentage of likely voters who have yet to make up their minds about the candidates may be as low as 2%.
The Russians have good reason to try to influence undecided Pennsylvania voters. Trump has said repeatedly that if elected he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. The only way that he could do so would be to threaten to cut off aid to Ukraine if it does not immediately concede Kremlin demands. At minimum, these demands would include a surrender of eastern Ukraine to the Russians and probably a decisive role in Ukrainian governance like the one enjoyed under President Victor Yanukovich before 2014. The Maidan Revolution then brought pro-Western leaders to Kiev. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, purchasing these concessions at the low cost of a sudden surge of social media disinformation in Pennsylvania, rather than through the prolonged expense of Iranian drones and of training North Korean troops, not to mention Russian draftees, would be like rubles from heaven.
The Russians have already launched this campaign. Last week, the FBI verified that a video purporting to show a poll worker destroying mail-in ballots for Trump was a Russian fake. The FBI wrote: "This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans, as detailed in prior ODNI election updates." ODNI is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also affirms this position.
Without a counter-attack, the Russian blitz may well succeed. Suppose that Harris leads in Pennsylvania by 1%. Flipping the vote could be done cheaply by convincing Harris voters to go for Trump in about a half of a percentage point of the turnout. The 2020 Pennsylvania turnout in the Presidential election was 7 million. So .5% of this works out to 35,000 votes. Assume that 4% of the turnout is willing to vote for Trump rather than Harris if persuaded: This would include the 2% of undecided voters and a like amount of soft Harris voters. Then the election could be flipped if disinformation persuades one-eighth of the target voters, presumably young males with no college degree ( .005/,04 = .125). This sounds feasible to me. Of course, my calculations are crude.
Fake videos in the Russian Storm-1516 campaign have also appeared in Georgia, a swing state with 16 electoral votes. The state secretary of Georgia, Brad Raffensberger, asked Elon Musk, owner of X and a Trump supporter, a few days ago to remove fake Russian videos. Musk's response has not been reported. https://thehill.com/.../4965272-raffensperger-asks-x.../ After the 2020 election, Trump demanded that Raffensberger "find 11,780 votes" to enable him to claim victory in the Georgia electoral election. https://www.axios.com/.../trump-georgia-election... . Georgia indicted Trump in this matter.
A few hours ago, the FBI reported bomb threats to polling sites in several states, including Georgia, that “appear to originate from Russian email domains.” https://www.usatoday.com/.../georgia-bomb.../76068592007/ The FBI said the threats were not credible. The Russians may have been trying to suppress the last-minute vote, which tends to be poor and Democrat.
Another possibility: Storm-1516 targets not the casting of votes but the counting of them. Hence the fake video in Georgia of a poll worker destroying Trump ballots. Suspicions of vote miscounting may touch off calls for recounts and decertifications. Federal agencies say Russia and Iran are ramping up influence campaigns targeting US voters - The Washington Post This backtracking could make it hard for states to meet the Constitutional deadline for submitting the electoral vote to Congress. It could also spur violence in the days and weeks following the election if Trump does not concede. -- Leon Taylor, Seymour, Indiana USA, tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Notes
For useful comments, I thank but do not implicate Annabel Benson.
References
BBC Verify and BBC News. Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh, and Mike Wendling.
FBI issues warning over two fake election videos . November 2, 2024.
