Hackers may try to stir up trouble but will likely have little impact on U.S. election results

Cyberattackerswho have caused all sorts of trouble in the U.S. election campaign could attempt to wreak significantelectoral havoc this Tuesday.

But some experts suggest thatwhile there are opportunities for hackers to engage in mischief making, it's unlikely they would be able to infiltrate the actual electronic voting machines millions of voters will use to cast their ballots.

"The chances thatthe actual ballot tabulationcould be hacked are next to nothing," saidMichael Cornfield,an associate professor at George Washington University'sGraduate School of Political Management and Research. "It's almost impossible."

'TheRussians have a motivetodiscreditAmerican democracy. Andthe opportunity is this election.'- Herb Lin,senior research scholar, Stanford University

Still, some experts say Russia which has been blamed for two significant email hacks this campaign, will do what it can to try to discredit the U.S. electoral process on Tuesday night.

"Who has the means, the motives, theopportunity?Certainly, Russia has the means," saidHerb Lin,a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

"Who has themotive?TheRussians have a motivetodiscreditAmerican democracy. Andthe opportunity is this election."

Decentralized system makes tampering unlikely

When it comes to the voting machines, the fear is thathackerscould tamper with themin a such a way,for example, as to makeavote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton count as a vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But that would be extremely difficult as the U.S. has such a decentralized voting system with over thousands of jurisdictions.

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"I think it'sleast likely because there are thousands and thousands of polling machines that you would have to get at," Lin said. "Not impossible but really hard to do."

According to Martin Libicki,a cyberwar expert at the RAND Corporation andauthor of Cyberspace in Peace and War, hackers will also bethwarted by the fact thatthe voting machinesaren't connected to the internet, and there's not a lot of internet voting taking place.

However, that's unlikely to stop Russians from trying to meddle in the election in some way, said James Lewis, an expert incybersecurityat the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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Russia-linked hackers might try to mess with voter registration databases, which are online,and remove voters from the list.

Lewis pointed to the state electionwebsitesin Illinois and Arizona that experienced hack-related shutdowns earlier this summer. In both cases, the parts of thewebsitesaffected involved online voter registration.

Hackers can undermine trust in system

"[Hackers]can't changethe outcome, but they can do things to make the election look like it had problems," Lewis said.

They have already played a role in the campaign.In July,thousands ofemailsfrom the Democratic NationalCommittee were released byWikiLeaksemailsthat some security experts believewere hacked into bycyberattackerswith links to the Russian government.

And just recently, another leaked emailhack, this one targeting top Clinton campaign aides, was also attributed to Russian operatives by some analysts.

"It wasn't an intelligence operation; it was a political operation," Lewis said. "It's what the Russians call active measures. They've gone out of their waytodiscredit the electoral process."

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That could also be achieved, Lin suggested, if hackers attempt to mess up theelection resultsdata or access to that data, which is used by mediawhen making election calls for states.

"It doesn't have legal significance, but it adds to the chaos and gives people a lack of confidence in what's going to happen."

Russia has denied all claims that it was behind the email hacks and has accused Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton of blaming Russiato score political points.

Get-out-the-vote efforts could be affected

Cornfield said hackers may have the most luck at infiltrating the private computer systemsof the respective political partiesand hampering their get-out-the-vote efforts.

For example, they could sabotage parties' efforts to organize volunteers to givepeople rides to the polling stations, he said.

Even though no actualdisruptions are likely to occur, that doesn't mean that certainpeople won'tallege they will occur.- Michael Cornfield, associate professor, George Washington University

The computers thatthe parties use are not publicly audited likeofficial electioncomputers, making them more vulnerable to attack, Cornfield said.

Cornfield still thinks it's an unlikely scenario, but even if hackers were able to break into those systems, he said, it wouldn't mean it would happen in the entire state, or that it would have a significant impact on theresults of the entire election.

"Even though no actualdisruptions are likely to occur, that doesn't mean that certainpeople won'tallege they will occur," he said. "Inthe categoryof perceptions that the electionis rigged, we have unprecedented troubles ahead."