(Bloomberg) -- Russia and Iran may seek to foment violent protests inside the US in the days and weeks after the Nov. 5 election as voting results are being tabulated and certified, US intelligence agencies warned on Tuesday.
The countries may encourage or amplify physical threats of violence against election workers, politicians and others in the post-voting weeks leading up to the Jan. 20 inauguration of the next president, the agencies said in a briefing with reporters.
Russian-backed actors, in particular, will focus on challenging the election outcome and probably will become more aggressive if Vice President Kamala Harris beats former President Donald Trump, according to the agencies.
“Some foreign actors may conduct activities that seek to disrupt or delay the time-sensitive and tightly sequenced series of processes and events that begin after polls close,” according to a declassified intelligence assessment released on Tuesday.
“Foreign actors also have the capacity to stoke protests, take violent actions, and conduct cyberattacks against some election infrastructure,” the agencies said.
Russia and Iran already have attempted to transform their influence operations into physical actions inside the US, according to the seven-page assessment, parts of which remain redacted.
In May and June, for example, Iran’s ministry of intelligence and security used social media to encourage an American to attend a pro-Palestinian protest in Washington, according to the assessment. In January, a Russian military unit sought to recruit an American to organize protests in the US, the assessment said.
Russian influence actors also have posted allegations on social media about the possibility of illegal voting by undocumented immigrants and by people using the identities of deceased individuals, according to the assessment.
US agencies also have determined that Russia manufactured and amplified fake content claiming illegal activity by Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, according to a separate assessment released on Tuesday.
However, US agencies don’t believe that Russia, Iran or any foreign actors will succeed in secretly manipulating the vote outcome.
“Even if they decided to try, foreign actors almost certainly would not be able to manipulate election processes at a scale that would materially impact the outcome of the presidential election without detection,” the agencies said.
(Updates with details from intelligence assessments starting in third paragraph.)
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