Fear of Foreign Interference in U.S. Elections Dates from Nation's Founding

Updated at 10:12 a.m. ET

The founders of American democracy could not have anticipated the technology of the 21st century or many of the other changes that have redefined the republic they created. But they clearly foresaw one challenge that faces the inheritors of their handiwork – the threat of foreign interference in our elections.

The fear of foreign interference was a driving issue in the conversations of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Several features of the Constitution that the framers produced that summer had their origin in this fear, as former Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor Potter noted in a 2017 speech.

Potter, now president of the Campaign Legal Center, said, "The founders took steps to guard against such [interference] by including in our Constitution guardrails like the requirement that the president be a 'natural born citizen.' "

Another guardrail was the Emoluments Clause, prohibiting any government officer from