As midterm elections approach, a growing concern that the nation is not protected from Russian interference

Two years after Russia interfered in the American presidential campaign, the nation has done little to protect itself against a renewed effort to influence voters in the coming congressional midterm elections, according to lawmakers and independent analysts. They say that voting systems are more secure against hackers, thanks to action at the federal and state levels — and that the Russians have not targeted those systems to the degree they did in 2016. But Russian efforts to manipulate U.S. voters through misleading social media postings are likely to have grown more sophisticated and harder to detect, and there is not a sufficiently strong government strategy to combat information warfare against the United States, outside experts said. Technology companies in general have struggled to curb the flow of disinformation and hacking and have received little guidance from the US government on how to do so.

Panelists from organizations like RAND, Graphika and the Alliance for Securing Democracy urged lawmakers that Russia's attacks on the democratic process are far greater than a single election, pointing to disinformation campaigns that seek to weaken western institutions as well as target world industries. 

“Twenty-one months after the 2016 election, and only three months before the 2018 elections, Russian-backed operatives continue to infiltrate and manipulate social media to hijack the national conversation and set Americans against each other,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) said at a hearing of Senate Intelligence Committee. “They were doing it in 2016; they are still doing it today.”