Chapter 32 Further Reading: Election Interference — Case Studies and Countermeasures

Annotations provide guidance on each work's argument, significance, and appropriate level of engagement.

Primary Sources and Official Reports

1. US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. Five Volumes. 2019-2020.

The five-volume Senate Intelligence Committee report on 2016 Russian interference represents the most comprehensive public reckoning with the documented operations. Volume 1 covers Russian hacking of election infrastructure; Volume 2 (prepared by New Knowledge) covers IRA social media operations; Volume 3 covers the Obama administration's response; Volume 4 (partially redacted) covers the Trump campaign's connections to Russian actors; Volume 5 covers counterintelligence. All volumes are publicly available at intelligence.senate.gov. Students should engage with at least Volume 1 and Volume 2 as primary sources, not through secondary summaries. Volume 2 is particularly important for its detailed analysis of IRA targeting strategies.

2. Mueller, Robert S. III. Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. Department of Justice, 2019.

The Mueller Report (Volume I on Russian interference, Volume II on obstruction) is the most authoritative legal analysis of Russian election interference, representing the conclusions of a two-year investigation with grand jury subpoena power and access to classified intelligence. Volume I's analysis of the IRA and GRU operations is meticulous and carefully sourced. Students should understand the report's evidentiary standards — it makes criminal charging decisions, not intelligence assessments — and the specific limits this places on its conclusions. Publicly available at justice.gov.

3. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Election Security Resources. Ongoing.

CISA's election security resources (cisa.gov/election-security) provide the authoritative technical perspective on US election infrastructure security, including specific guidance on paper ballot requirements, post-election audits, physical security, and cybersecurity assessments. Students interested in the technical dimension of election security should engage with CISA's published materials, which represent the accumulated knowledge of federal and state election security professionals. CISA also publishes specific election-cycle threat assessments and "tabletop exercise" materials for election officials.

4. Freedom House. Freedom on the Net. Annual report series.

Freedom House's annual "Freedom on the Net" report assesses internet freedom in 70+ countries, including specific analysis of election-related internet manipulation, disinformation campaigns, and government censorship of election-related content. The country-by-country analysis provides valuable comparative data on how election interference manifests in different information environments. Available freely at freedomhouse.org. Students researching Global South election interference patterns should consult Freedom House country reports alongside the more frequently cited US and European sources.

Books

5. Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at Penn, argues that Russian interference operations were outcome-determinative in the 2016 US election. Her argument combines statistical analysis of message exposure with experimental research on how specific message types affect voting intention, and with analysis of media coverage dynamics surrounding the Podesta email releases. The book represents the strongest scholarly case that Russian interference had significant electoral effects. It should be read alongside research that reaches more cautious conclusions (Guess, Nyhan, and Reifler; Benkler, Faris, and Roberts) to understand the genuine empirical debate about interference effects.

6. Benkler, Yochai, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Based on systematic analysis of four million news stories and extensive social network mapping, Benkler and colleagues argue that the primary driver of 2016 American political disinformation was not Russian foreign interference but domestic structural features of right-wing partisan media — its asymmetric insularity and propaganda feedback loops. This argument, which prioritizes domestic media ecosystem analysis over foreign actor analysis, represents the most important scholarly challenge to exclusively foreign-focused election interference narratives. Essential for students who want to engage seriously with debates about the relative importance of foreign vs. domestic drivers.

7. Frankel, Laurie. This Is How It Always Is. Flatiron Books, 2017. [NOT recommended — incorrect listing]

7. Rid, Thomas. Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.

See Chapter 31 Further Reading annotation. Particularly relevant to Chapter 32 for its historical analysis of Soviet election-related disinformation and its assessment of the continuities between Cold War and contemporary operations. Chapter-specific relevance: Rid's analysis of the 2016 election situates it within a longer history of election-targeted influence operations that gives important context for understanding what is genuinely novel and what is historically continuous.

8. Ressa, Maria. How to Stand Up to a Dictator. Harper, 2022.

Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist and Rappler founder Maria Ressa's account of her work documenting and resisting the Duterte administration's systematic use of social media disinformation, coordinated inauthentic behavior, and legal harassment of critical journalism. The book provides an essential first-person account of how election disinformation and attacks on democratic journalism are connected, with specific documentation of the Philippine troll army's operations. Particularly important for understanding Global South election interference patterns and the personal risks faced by journalists who cover these operations.

9. Painter, Richard. Unprecedented: Confronting the Democratic Erosion from Trump's Attempts to Hold Power. Yale University Press, 2021.

A former Bush administration White House ethics lawyer provides a legal analysis of the "Big Lie" and post-2020 election actions, situating them within the framework of laws governing elections, government officials' duties, and the democratic transfer of power. Useful for students interested in the legal dimensions of domestic election interference — specifically, what legal remedies exist for domestic actors who spread false claims about election results with the intent of preventing democratic transfers of power.

Research and Policy Reports

10. Stamos, Alex, Renée DiResta, et al. Exposing Russian Disinformation Tactics Through the Senate Intelligence Committee Disclosures. Stanford Internet Observatory, 2019.

The Stanford Internet Observatory's analysis of the data provided by major platforms to the Senate Intelligence Committee provides methodological clarity about how researchers detect and document influence operations. This report is valuable not only for its specific findings but for its transparency about methodology — explaining what can and cannot be concluded from platform-provided data, what biases and gaps exist in the available data, and how the evidentiary standards appropriate for academic research differ from those appropriate for public policy. Available at the Stanford Internet Observatory website.

11. Bradshaw, Samantha, and Philip N. Howard. The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation. Oxford Internet Institute, 2019.

The Oxford Internet Institute's annual inventory of organized social media manipulation documents influence operations in 70+ countries, providing essential global comparative data. Bradshaw and Howard found evidence of computational propaganda operations in every region of the world, with significant variation in tactics and targets. This report is essential for students studying Global South election interference patterns — it provides systematic documentation that moves beyond the heavily US- and Europe-focused mainstream literature. Available freely at the Oxford Internet Institute website.

12. Pennycook, Gordon, and David G. Rand. "The Psychology of Fake News." Trends in Cognitive Sciences 25, no. 5 (2021): 388-402.

A concise synthesis of psychological research on why people believe false election-related and other political content. Pennycook and Rand's research emphasizes the role of inattention (rather than motivated reasoning) in explaining belief in fake news — with significant implications for intervention design. Their finding that simple accuracy prompts can reduce belief in false content by activating dormant accuracy norms has generated extensive applied research. Available through academic library databases; appropriate for advanced undergraduate engagement.

13. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy. National Academies Press, 2018.

The authoritative scientific assessment of US election security, covering voting technology, cybersecurity, auditability, and election administration. Particularly valuable for the chapter's section on technical election security — the National Academies report provides the expert consensus on paper ballots, risk-limiting audits, and election administration practices that form the technical security baseline against which disinformation claims about election integrity should be assessed. Freely available at nap.nationalacademies.org.

14. Bradshaw, Samantha, Lisa-Maria Neudert, and Philip N. Howard. Government Responses to Malicious Use of Social Media. Oxford Internet Institute, 2019.

Comparative analysis of how different governments have responded to social media manipulation, covering regulatory approaches, transparency requirements, platform regulation, and media literacy programs. Provides essential comparative context for understanding why different democracies have adopted different regulatory frameworks for addressing election disinformation. Freely available at the Oxford Internet Institute; appropriate for undergraduate research.

15. European Union. Code of Practice on Disinformation. 2018 (updated 2022).

The EU's industry self-regulatory framework for addressing disinformation, through which major platforms committed to specific transparency and accountability measures. The 2022 update significantly strengthened commitments and added monitoring provisions. Reading the Code alongside its annual transparency reports provides insight into both what platforms have committed to doing about election disinformation and the significant gaps between commitments and demonstrated effectiveness. Available at the European Commission website; provides essential context for understanding the EU's regulatory approach to platform accountability.