Conquered

DVEs, particularly those motivated by anti-government or partisan issues, will likely view a wide range of targets indirectly and directly associated with elections as viable targets for violence with the intent of instilling fear among voters, candidates, and election workers, as well as disrupting election processes leading up to and after the November election.

Foreign malign influence actors almost certainly will target democratic processes across federal, state, and local governments, aiming to affect US voter preferences, exacerbate social tensions, and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and processes, including election operations.

What Can We Expect Before, During, and After the Electoral Process?

DVE= Domestic Violent Extremist

HVE=US Citizen Violent Extremist

We expect DVEs will pose the most significant physical threat to:

  • Government Officials
  • Elections-related personnel and infrastructure, including
  • Polling places,
  • Ballot drop box locations,
  • Voter registration sites,
  • Campaign events,
  • Political party offices, and
  • Vote counting sites.

In particular, anti-government or anti-authority DVEs, many of whom likely will be inspired by partisan policy grievances or conspiracy theories, will pose the most significant threat.

We have also recently observed a rise in disruptive tactics targeting election officials and offices including:—like those observed in past election cycles—including

  • Hoax bomb threats,
  • Swatting,
  • Doxxing, and
  • Mailing white powder letters (Anthrax), intended to instill fear and disrupt campaign and election operations.

Some DVEs could also react violently should their preferred candidate lose, or they could seek to exploit possible civil unrest if there are perceptions of election fraud.

Online users in forums frequented by some DVEs have increasingly called for violence linked to the 2024 election cycle and seek to promote violence in response to:

  • Politically and socially divisive topics,
  • Immigration,
  • Abortion rights,
  • LGBTQIAS
  • Significant current events

US election infrastructure—including voter registration databases and associated information technology (IT) infrastructure and systems—may be targeted by a broad swath of opportunistic malicious cyber actors. These critical elections components and systems typically hold sensitive personally identifiable information of US persons, much of which may also be publicly or commercially available, that could be used to facilitate follow-on foreign malign influence campaigns or other illicit activity.

Between September 2023 and July 2024, DVEs driven by various anti-government, racial, or gender-related motivations have conducted at least four attacks in the Homeland, one of which resulted in a death.

Over the last year, DVE efforts have focused on a range of targets, including ethnic and religious minorities, government officials, and ideological opponents, while HVEs have mostly targeted faith-based organizations.

DVEs and HVEs will continue to be influenced by sociopolitical drivers emphasized in popular discourse, particularly those related to current events, which are used to amplify existing narratives and justify violence. HAMAS’s terrorist attack against Israel on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent conflict between Israel and HAMAS and its regional allies have spurred violent extremists across the ideological spectrum to promote attacks against Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Arab communities in the United States.

In contrast to DVE and HVE attacks, most mass casualty attacks in the Homeland U.S. Department of Homeland Security over the last year were not motivated by an ideology, but were rather associated with suspected or confirmed mental illness or driven by relationship grievances; however, these factors alone are not diagnostic indicators of likely violence. Over the last year, at least eight mass casualty attacks primarily motivated by reasons other than an ideology have occurred in the United States, killing at least 38 and injuring 68. Individuals acting alone conducted most of these attacks while using firearms and targeting commercial and education facilities.

Yoked to extant forms of S&T (e.g., aircraft, ordnance, etc.) to facilitate delivery in kinetic engagements at all stages of the election process for Deep Penetration of the Electoral Process. 

Expect Chemical, Biological, or SOS at any/all stages of the electoral process.

Expect:

  • Lawfare
  • Criminal legal action
  • Security detention
  • Assets freezes;
  • Cyber operations
  • Infrastructure Ops
  • Conventional ordnance: It employs traditional weapon systems, such as missiles, artillery, and small arms operations.
  • Lethal force: Kinetic warfare is designed to inflict harm or destruction on enemy personnel, equipment, and infrastructure.

Proactive deterrence  methods to exert influential force upon identified targeted burdens, risks, and threat resources to suppress, if not eliminate, current and ongoing development of force strengths and capabilities.

***Non-kinetic deterrence involves influence operations to include soft weapons (of economics, policy, law, and/or ecological and environmental influence) to leverage relative power in ways relevant to exercising hegemonic control.

Kinetic deterrence involves the use of military and intelligence force, characteristically by the actual employment of methods and tools (i.e., as weapons) of disruption and/or destruction in accordance with defined parameters of hostile activity (in either defensive or offensive postures).

  • Inducing indirect or direct destructive effects, (against infrastructures, resources, various functions, and mortal effects against humans, agricultural stocks, etc.).
  • Elements and activities of biopower