
Emotive topics such as COVID-19 and the role of policing will be at the heart of this election, and these tense issues, alongside the highly polarized nature of the electorate, ensure there will be a fertile ground for misinformation campaigns from nation state actors seeking to influence the outcome of the election. Such a phenomenon was observed recently in the so-called ‘Brexit election’ in the UK in December 2019, following which the UK government’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) described Russia as a “highly capable cyber-actor.”
