Election interference in America. A term that was barely used a

decade ago is now ubiquitous. Clearly it's election interference if a foreign nation

hacks into voting machines and changes the count.

But when we talk about election interference nowadays, we're often referring to something much

more subtle.

Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right

to do it.

Over time, the term has come to be a catch-, for basically any political action that makes us uncomfortable.

I spoke with political journalist John Alsop, who recently wrote a piece for the New Yorker about the fuzzy subjective meaning of election interference and why it matters.

You're listening to the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggett and I'm a senior editor at the New Yorker. Hey John, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

So I want to start by going back to the 2016 presidential election, which is when a lot of people first

started hearing the term election interference more often.

What did that term mean back then and what kind of behavior was it referring to?

Yeah, so I guess that it's always been a term or at least an idea that has existed

right so it's not something that was kind of born in in 2016 in fact

there are some kind of quite 2016ish echoes if you go all the way back to to the first

contested presidential election in 1796 and I found you know an old

newspaper reports and things like that that the term itself has recurred in loads of

different contexts over the years and it's always been you know a term that's subjective so when we talk

about what it meant in 2016 it's not necessarily the same meaning for for everyone but

but clearly the kind of overwhelming narrative around election interference in 2016, I think, was one of foreign interference, specifically on the part of Russia, right?

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