This year’s US election cycle was marked by increasingly brazen attempts by foreign actors to interfere and influence voters. Iran orchestrated a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump and successfully accessed documents fr [...]
The Kremlin is known for testing disinformation strategies in its “backyard” before applying them globally. Last week in Moldova, the presidential election and constitutional referendum on EU membership presented Russia with such an opportunity. Rus [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer joined CNN to discuss the evolving information space around the 2024 US election, including false, manipulated videos of alleged election irregularities which have been traced back to Russian threat actors. watch here [...]
In May, ASD, along with our partners at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the University of Amsterdam (UvA), published a report documenting roughly 400 domains that had published identical or nearly identical copies of articles original [...]
Americans vote in this year’s consequential presidential election in an environment marked by growing threats, including the weaponization of artificial intelligence, influence campaigns run by foreign authoritarian adversaries, and false election n [...]
Two years on from the 2022 US midterm elections, TikTok continues to serve as a platform candidates use to try to reach voters. According to a new report from the Technology Program and the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund [...]
Influencers and content creators play a critical role in today’s information environment as opinion makers and trusted voices. As a result, influencers and their online communities have become targets for malign actors seeking to undermine confidenc [...]
In the polarized political landscape of the United States, few words carry as much weight or evoke as much passion as “democracy”. As the cornerstone of American political identity, democracy is both revered and contested by citizens across the ideo [...]
The decentralized nature of election administration in the United States means that every state—and even election jurisdiction—has its own rules for voting and ballot counting. In 2020, variances in election procedures were misconstrued, and in some [...]
Generative AI programs can be used to churn out content parroting false narratives within seconds and produce sophisticated fake images, videos, and audio that are increasingly indistinguishable from authentic material. The widespread accessibility [...]
The complexities of the information space are eroding trust in election processes. The information space, where Americans work, learn, engage, and entertain themselves online, is increasingly opaque and fragmented. The major social media platforms h [...]
The Ukrainian president’s visit to a Pennsylvania arms factory was partisan but not election interference. On September 27, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment against three Iranian intelligence agents accused of running a “hac [...]
This is the first in a series of reports covering online conversations related to the security and administration of the 2024 US elections. These reports are meant to highlight key narrative trends in the election space, including but not limited to [...]
Co-Managing Director Rachael Dean Wilson spoke at a panel discussion at the McCain Institute about the release of a report entitled "Defending American Democracy in the Digital Age". watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and comment [...]
On September 4, 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) seized 32 website domains connected to Russia’s “Doppelganger” network and charged two Russian state media employees with funneling almost $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creat [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer discussed the US Department of Justice's recent indictment of two RT employees for funneling millions of dollars to a Tennessee-based media company. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are [...]
Senior Fellow Bret Schafer joined CNN to discuss the DOJ's recent indictment of two RT employees for financing Russian disinformation in the United States. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the au [...]
ASD's Co-Managing Director David Salvo joined CNN's Jim Sciutto to discuss foreign interference efforts in the 2024 US election, including Iran's reported hack of Trump campaign documents. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and c [...]
Co-Managing Director Rachael Dean Wilson joined CNBC to discuss US foreign adversaries' motivations for interfering in the 2024 US presidential election and the state of the race. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary [...]
Introduction In the days after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a torrent of false and misleading information about the attack flooded social media. While the majority of these claims see [...]
The US presidential debate provided insights into the candidates’ messaging around election integrity, with former President Trump revealing a shift in his messaging toward a broader audience. Meanwhile, President Biden’s performance led to question [...]
“This old-fashioned, sort of low-level kind of manipulation has been perfectly capable of misleading and manipulating people for quite a long time,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow for media and digital disinformation for the Alliance for Securin [...]
Co-Managing Director Rachael Dean Wilson joined "The Final 5" on FOX 5 Washington DC to discuss challenges to public trust in US elections as the 2024 presidential election nears. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary [...]
ASD Co-Managing Director David Salvo joined C-SPAN Washington Journal to discuss and answer questions about foreign interference threats to the 2024 US elections. watch here The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of [...]
Despite a lower profile in the national debate, the tools, tactics, motivations, and actors associated with foreign interference in US elections have evolved significantly since Russia’s “sweeping and systematic” 2016 operation. The Cybersecurity an [...]
“Look up SMARTMATIC and tweet me what you think?” tweeted Rudy Guiliani, then-US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, in the weeks after the 2020 US presidential election. It was part of a broader campaign to delegitimize the election by castin [...]
Introduction The typical local election official in the United States is a white woman who is older than 50, earns more than $40,000, does not have a college degree, and is less likely today than in the past to have extensive experience in electio [...]
Democratic backsliding has been a defining feature of modern politics and the transatlantic space has not been immune to this trend. The subversive effect of autocratic efforts to undermine democracy has concerned leaders across Europe and the Unite [...]
In her last State of the European Union (SOTEU) speech for this Commission mandate, Ursula von der Leyen expectedly stayed mum on whether she intends to stand again. But it is difficult to take her address as anything but a carefully calibrated effo [...]
Earlier this month, Harris County sued the State of Texas to temporarily block a law, known as Senate Bill 1750, that would eliminate the Harris County elections administrator position effective September 1st. Harris County really messed up its ad [...]
Last month, seven leading artificial intelligence companies agreed to voluntary commitments with the White House on AI safety, security and trust. But there’s one glaring and urgent omission: a deadline. No timeline or details regarding implementat [...]
David Levine and Krystyna Sikora discuss findings from their recent paper "Countering the Weaponization of Election Administration Mistakes" at the Electoral Integrity Project's third annual virtual conference. Watch their panel at 1:12:31. [...]
Introduction When people perform tasks in a complex work environment, mistakes are bound to happen. Election systems are no exception. Although the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections in the United States were free, fair, and well-adminis [...]
Lindsay Gorman, a technology expert at the German Marshall Fund, discusses on "Face the Nation" how to differentiate AI-generated images online from real ones. "Context is a really important piece of this," she noted. [...]
Ongoing innovation is innate to the human spirit and stops at no borders. While Americans are rightly proud of being the nation that gave the world powered flight, we owe the development of the modern monoplane design to a Romanian, Trajan Vuia, who [...]
Experts in opinion polling and politics join this discussion around the 2024 presidential race in the United States. Presidential politics could impact the trajectory of the “New Atlanticism” and US support for Ukraine as isolationist or “America Fi [...]
Introduction As a result of the 2020 and 2022 federal elections, the job of administering elections has dramatically changed in the United States, and the demands on the dedicated officials that run our elections have also increased. The people wh [...]
At the start of the new year, we asked our experts to each put forth one recommendation that would strengthen democracy during a period of declining trust, emboldened autocrats, and war. Their answers touch on a variety of issues—from the war in Ukr [...]