Remember, though, that Russia's primary efforts were social media campaigns and disinformation efforts. There is no way to stop that, whatever we tell ourselves. The basic problems that allow disinformation campaigns to work are human credulity and the fragmented media environment. Human credulity is an unsolvable problem, and we aren't going back to a 3-network set-up. The tech companies aren't going to find a magic solution to stop lies from getting into peoples' news feeds. Keeping the electronic voting systems off-line? That's a no-brainer, but stopping the disinformation? You can't prevent it from getting into the internet, and you can't get people to stop being credulous.
Remember, though, that public opinion polls didn't move against Clinton when the DNC hacks were released. The hacked emails were released just prior to the Democratic Convention, after which Clinton's numbers went up. To argue that Russia's main meddling efforts hurt Clinton, then, requires arguing that her numbers would have gone up more without the hacks, and that's a difficult argument to make. Otherwise, those arguing for the efficacy of Russia's interference are arguing that it was the effect of something happening throughout the campaign in a way that we can't measure. Yet, remember that Clinton ran ahead of Trump throughout the 2016 campaign in the polls. There was nationwide polling error, which Russia's disinformation campaign should not have had anything to do with, numbers shifted more to the GOP in the Great Lakes region, which should not have had anything to do with Russian meddling, which was nationwide, and Comey was the big factor at the end, not Russia. For all of Trump's bragging about how easily he, personally, defeated Clinton in mano-a-mano combat with his tiny, tiny manos,* James Comey was his champion on that field of battle.
My point is to remind you that, while we talk about Russia, it is a hard case to make that they really swung the election. I don't think they did. Comey? Yes. Yes, he did. The biggest problem with Putin's interference is Trump's propensity to fall prey to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (unless he is also just being blackmailed...). Putin interfered with the intent to help Trump, Trump won, therefore Trump has a debt to Putin based on the misperception that Putin caused his victory, or at the very least, Trump has an obligation to Putin because Putin has the potential to help Trump in the future. Will that future interference matter? Not likely. Not on any big scale.
Human credulity? That matters, but it's also unsolvable.
*As we all know, a presidential election in the United States can best be described as one-on-one combat between the two nominees. There are no other actors involved. At all. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in one-on-one combat, and that's all there is to it!
