Report: No Impact of foreign interference during the 2022 U.S. mid-term election

Listen to this article

“There is no evidence that any foreign government affiliated actor materially affected the security or integrity of any election infrastructure in the 2022 federal elections,” according to a joint Report of the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, obtained by the Wisconsin Law Journal.

Findings from the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, including the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and CISA were included in the December 2023 report. The report addresses the impact of activities by foreign governments and their agents targeting election infrastructure or infrastructure pertaining to political organizations, candidates, or campaigns used in the 2022 US federal elections on the security or integrity of such infrastructure. Pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 13848, the joint report relied on the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) addressing foreign threats to the 2022 US elections.

U.S. based intelligence and law enforcement officials detected cyber activity from Russia and China that did not compromise election infrastructure.

“We did detect some cyber activity that did not compromise election infrastructure networks, including from pro-Russian hacktivists and suspected People’s Republic of China (PRC) actors,” officials said.

U.S. Law enforcement and the intelligence community also “identified multiple incidents when Russian, Iranian, and Chinese government-affiliated actors connected to campaign infrastructure during the 2022 federal elections, including PRC cyber actors broadly scanning state political party domains.

“While some cyber activity resulted in accessing some components of campaign infrastructure, we do not have any indications of any information obtained through this activity released in influence operations or otherwise deployed, modified, or destroyed,” officials noted.

“We do not have any indications of unattributed or cybercriminal activity which materially affected the integrity of voter data, the ability to vote, the tabulation of votes, or the timely transmission of election results,” officials added.

Officials urge cybersecurity enhancements to prevent future similar attempts.

“Improvements in cybersecurity, partnerships, and public messaging enhanced the resilience of the electoral process to the vulnerabilities that actors sought to exploit during the 2022 federal elections,” officials noted.

As previously reported by the Wisconsin Law Journal, officials say reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a national security imperative.

“The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security remain committed to continuously strengthening the nation’s cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, supply chain risk management, public-private partnerships, and election literacy to enhance the resiliency of our democratic institutions ahead of the 2024 Federal election cycle,” officials said.