The US has warned of "swift" and "severe" retaliatory action in case of any foreign meddling in the crucial mid-term polls as the America's intelligence community Wednesday expressed its concern over ongoing election interference campaign by foreign actors, in particular Russia, China and Iran.
In the November 6 mid-term elections, Americans would elect 435 members of the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 Senate seats in Congress.
The US has said that the foreign interference in the US elections is a threat to America's democracy.
The intelligence community is concerned about ongoing interference campaigns by Russia, China, and other foreign actors, including Iran, to undermine confidence in the democratic institutions and influence public sentiment and government policies, a senior intelligence official told reporters.
And, as such, identifying and preventing this interference is a top priority for the federal government, the official said.
The US has said that it will take severe action against those trying to interfere with the polls.
"If there is interference in that, that fundamentally wrecks the natural process that we have established in this country, and really undermines what we would be looking at. That has to be met with swift and severe action," the official said.
A senior official said that by foreign influence, they mean activities that are designed to affect voters or the American public.
Those activities can occur completely separate from an election because it could be just influencing people on devices, social issues, and so forth that we see, whether it's election season or not, the official said.
The US intelligence agencies have taken a slew of measures to prevent any such attempt on the election day.
For instance, on November 6, the FBI will manage a national election command post which will include participation from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.
The purpose of the command post is to assist FBI field officers across the country and ensure that allegations related to violations of federal criminal law and security threats to the election are appropriately handled, the official said.
A senior administration official said that the White House will be monitoring the execution of all the processes on the day of the election.
"This is not a top-down push or order. We're not trying to run elections out of the White House here. What we are trying to do is make sure that all of those partners are well informed of activities on the ground," the official said.
Another intelligence official said that the US wants to send a strong message to foreign adversaries that interference with America's elections will not be tolerated.
The President signed an executive order earlier this year, mandating sanctions in the event of election interference.
"This is something that has happened since the dawn of the republic. Foreign nations have always tried to influence the way that the US will act through a variety of means. That could be advertising, that could be lobbying. And we see those means evolve over the years," the official said.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
