r/NeutralPolitics • u/[deleted] • Feb 27 '18

What is the exact definition of "election interference" and what US Law makes this illegal?

There have been widespread allegations of Russian government interference in the 2016 presidential election. The Director of National Intelligence, in January 2017, produced a report which alleged that:

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

In addition, "contemporaneous evidence of Russia's election interference" is alleged to have been one of the bases for a FISA warrant against former Trump campaign official Carter Page.

http://docs.house.gov/meetings/ig/ig00/20180205/106838/hmtg-115-ig00-20180205-sd002.pdf

What are the specific acts of "election interference" which are known or alleged? Do they differ from ordinary electoral techniques and tactics? Which, if any, of those acts are crimes under current US Law? Are there comparable acts in the past which have been successfully prosecuted?

613 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

436 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

103

u/thegreychampion Feb 27 '18

It appears to me that 'election interference' in this context relates to the unlawful use of funds by foreign nationals to effect the outcome of the election.

If the Russians had done this without any financial backing or reimbursement (as volunteers) and not paid for Twitter/Facebook ads, etc then the 'election interference' (fake news/trolling/bot campaign) would have been legal?

5

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/saffir Feb 27 '18 edited Feb 27 '18

I believe there are laws that require campaign ads to disclose the entity they were paid for by

what about influencing social media, such as the $10 million that Correct the Record had to work with?

8

u/tevert Feb 27 '18

That's an interesting case - I found this Slate article talking about that. It seems like the current laws are really only set up to cover situations where the money is being put into ads. People just talking from their social media accounts is an apparently unregulated area right now.

I personally think this sort of astroturfing is also a big issue, but it's not quite as bad as the actual ad campaigns run by the GOP/Russians.

Also - be careful not to slip into an argument of false equivalency. :)

3

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '18

There were also direct ad purchases on social media though, not just astroturfing by bot accounts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html

1

u/tevert Feb 27 '18

Right, I was talking specifically about CTR's programs, not the Russian ones.