One Big Way China Interferes in United States Elections

On June 16, 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel submitted a report to Congress. The report detailed “stunning” documents. These documents were allegedly related to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

“The FBI has obtained detailed documents containing shocking allegations related to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, including accusations of CCP interference,” Patel stated. “I have declassified these materials immediately and handed them over to Chairman Grassley for further examination.”

Senator Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, realized the documents were provided to the FBI in 2020 (during former President Trump’s first term) by a confidential source.

The source claimed that the CCP mass-produced fake driver’s licenses used for mail-in ballots.

In 2022, Trump appointed journalist John Solomon and Patel as his representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration to handle matters related to his presidential records.

The two discovered that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had intercepted fake driver’s licenses, mostly from mainland China and Hong Kong.

The majority of the seized IDs were in the names of “college students.”

In August 2020, then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified to Congress. He stated that no foreign interference had been detected ahead of the 2020 election. Curiously, the related documents were subsequently sealed.

At the time, Senator Grassley questioned the FBI’s actions. He asserted that the intelligence, which included evidence of forged IDs, had been dismissed without thorough verification.

On December 18, 2020, General Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor stated: “We’ve seen bad behavior in election security. We cannot tolerate foreign influence. We have direct evidence of foreign influence.

At the time, other countries and foreign partners witnessed the attack on the American election system on November 3, 2020. Most of these countries are now willing to provide this evidence directly to President Trump.

Several irregularities were reported by some of the foreign media after the 2020 election:

U.S. Customs reported seizing at least 20,000 fake driver’s licenses from mainland China and Hong Kong.

It was suspected that these were generated using personal information stolen via TikTok or other digital means. Chinese hackers may have been involved.

Analysts viewed this as a form of CCP “unrestricted warfare” aimed at meddling in the U.S. election.

On December 5, 2020, U.S. independent media outlet Gateway Pundit reported a video from CCP princeling Yi Qiwei. He claimed the CCP forged ballots for Mississippi, Florida, and North Carolina. They produced 500,000 per month.

On November 9, Yi tweeted: “Printing factories in Guangdong, China are helping to print fake ballots. These ballots were shipped under the guise of medical supplies to Canada and Mexico between August and October 2020. They were then smuggled into the U.S.”

In January 2024, Dajiyuan published an investigative report titled “How the CCP Interfered in the U.S. Election.” The information came from a declassified report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Several private investigations also contributed. These sources confirmed that the CCP employed various tactics to interfere in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.

The methods included:

-Retaliating against U.S. lawmakers;

-Targeting anti-CCP candidates for punishment while rewarding pro-CCP ones.

-Spreading divisive content to sow discord.

-Using social media accounts, proxy websites, paid influencers, and PR firms to manipulate American public opinion on China (even posing as U.S. voters online).

These findings matched reports released by tech giants Meta and Microsoft in 2023. In August 2023, Meta announced it had removed thousands of accounts. These accounts were linked to China’s law enforcement apparatus. Meta described it as part of the largest global influence operation of its kind.

These actors attempted to influence the 2022 U.S. midterm elections and simultaneously targeted key U.S. allies and partners, including Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and the U.K.

On August 30, 2020, former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe made a statement. He said this during an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo: “The Chinese Communist Party is conducting large-scale, sophisticated interference activities targeting the U.S. election—far surpassing the capabilities of any other country. Their operations are massive and deeply embedded.”

In September 2023, Microsoft released a report. It revealed that CCP hackers had impersonated American voters online during the 2022 midterms. The hackers used AI-generated content to spread divisive messaging.

Undeniably, the CCP’s methods for interfering in the midterms were also used in the 2020 presidential election. The scale and depth of the CCP’s prior election interference and infiltration of the U.S. have made it hard for American political circles to find it difficult to believe Beijing will refrain from similar actions in the 2026 midterm election.