Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference by David Shimer

Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference is a book written by David Shimer and published in 2021. Part history lesson, part warning, this book takes us on a journey through a century of interference in American elections by foreign powers, primarily Russia and the Soviet Union.

In Rigged, Shimer places the focus on the long-term pattern of manipulation that foreign actors have employed in the United States, rather than the narrative of one-off episodes. He argues that these election interference campaigns are not simply a twenty-first century problem; on the contrary, Russian and Soviet attempts at securing favorable US election outcomes date back to the early 1900s.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union employed a wide range of tactics to sway American elections. These tactics included attempts at infiltration of political organizations, attempts at fomenting leftist revolutions, and attempts at promoting the spread of propaganda that reflected the Soviet ideology.

The latter half of the twentieth century saw two particularly noteworthy interventions. During the chess Match of 1972, world-renowned grandmaster Bobby Fischer was playing against Boris Spassky from the Soviet Union. The Soviets attempted to use the match to bolster their own reputation and to convince the world that a Russian chess player could beat an American one in what was seen as a test of power on an international stage.

During the 1976 US Presidential Election, the Soviets attempted to interfere with the election outcome. This interference included attempts to spread pro-Soviet propaganda domestically and to influence public opinion through various channels. Although the exact extent of the interference is unknown, these efforts are believed to have impacted the outcome of the election.

In addition to focusing on the wide range of election interference tactics employed by the Soviets, Shimer also highlights the inadequate response to these interventions by the United States government. He argues that due to both political partisanship and deeply entrenched beliefs within the US political system, the American government has failed to effectively address these issues over time. In the present, this lack of response has resulted in a lack of clear and consistent policy framework on how to respond to foreign election interference.

In his book, David Shimer provides an in-depth look at the long and complex history of covert foreign interference in US elections. He points out the serious and significant risks posed by such interference and argues for the need for policies and measures that can effectively deter and prevent further interventions. This book serves as an important reminder that the problem of foreign interference in elections is not new, and that a failure to address the issue can have lasting consequences.