![US intelligence report: foreign adversaries attempted to interfere in 2020 election](https://www.jurist.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2019/11/WA-Ballot-Box.jpg)
Foreign adversaries, such as Russia and Iran, attempted to interfere in the 2020 US election, according to a declassified report released Tuesday by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Executive Order 13848(1)(a) required the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) to address key foreign actors’ intentions and efforts to influence or interfere with the 2020 US federal elections. The report released was a declassified version of a report issued to the president on January 7, which means that the analytic judgments are identical to the original report. However, the report does not include full supporting information, such as specific intelligence reports, sources or methods.
According to the report, there was no interference with the technical aspects of the election, which include voter registration, ballot casting and results reporting. However, countries such as Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela did reportedly attempt to influence the election.
The report concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations “aimed at denigrating President [Joe] Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President [Donald] Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.” The report also found that Iran carried out a covert influence operation intended to undercut former Trump’s re-election prospects. China did not attempt to interfere with the election, but other foreign actors such as Cuba and Venezuela took small steps to influence the elections.
There has been a history of foreign interference with US federal elections. There was also election interference in 2016, as a detailed in a report released by the Senate in August.