The Kremlin’s more appealing strategy appears to be the pursuit and sustained subversion of the upcoming election and American democracy as a whole. On the propaganda and disinformation front, they’ve already ramped up predictions of widespread election rigging and fraud via mail-in balloting, building on the election rigging narratives they’ve promoted since the Iowa caucuses. GRU hackers might, like 2016, take shots at voter rolls and election machines, but this seems less likely in the face of an American cyber response this time around.

This leaves Election Day. If the polls aren’t close, and a Biden victory seems likely, the Kremlin could get really evil. ... Russia could conduct pin-prick hacks in key battleground states to muddy the voting results either at polling places or amongst reporting media outlets. Maybe shut off the power, disabling poll sites in key battleground states. Simultaneously, they could instigate witting and unwitting allies in America to storm polling places, incite violence or contest election results—Kremlin operatives were connected to a similar scenario during Montenegro’s 2016 parliamentary election. ... encourage President Trump to remain in the White House post-inauguration ... Kremlin trolls would amplify all such chaos on social media and confuse the American public, helping to shatter voter confidence in the true outcome of the election.

For Russia, this would be a bold maneuver, one that would necessitate an American response that could be very costly over the long term. But Putin might feel just emboldened enough to pursue it, depending on a mix of domestic and international factors. In the latter doomsday scenario, if 2020 goes like 2016, we should watch for the Kremlin to signal its chosen course of action in early October, roughly a month before votes are cast. ...

https://www.fpri.org/fie/election-2020-russia-china/