WASHINGTON — Senators on the U.S. Senate Rules Committee expressed concerns Tuesday that poll workers may need protection and that artificial intelligence could interfere in the fall elections.
Leading members of the committee said AI has already been used to promote disinformation that has interfered with elections, while elections workers have for years experienced intimidation. Both issues seriously threaten election integrity, the senators said.
“We are very concerned about what we have seen in just snippets of ads and videos that have gone out that attack candidates on both sides of the aisle, but they are complete deep fakes and not the actual candidate and you can’t even tell it’s not the candidate,” Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said AI is already being used to interfere with elections, noting voters in New Hampshire received a robocall in the voice of President Joe Biden telling them not to vote in the state’s presidential primary.
Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who also chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he is concerned that intelligence agencies have indicated that “we are potentially less protected as we go into 2024 in terms of the security of our elections than we were during 2020.”
“That’s a pretty stunning fact,” Warner said.
Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet expressed similar concerns and said he’s not surprised by the threat to democracy that AI can pose, especially on social media platforms.
“Every single one of these platforms, I think, virtually, has been used to spread … disinformation,” he said.
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, said Michigan is focused on two things for the upcoming election: “fighting deception and misinformation about our elections and protecting the people who protect democracy.”
Benson expressed concern about how AI could be used to spread disinformation.
“I am also worried AI will make it easier to create and distribute hyperlocal disinformation that misleads voters about the voting process or conditions at their specific polling site,” she said.
The top Republican on the committee, Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, asked Brian Kruse, the election commissioner of Douglas County, Nebraska, what unique challenges he faces in preparing for elections.
Kruse echoed concerns about disinformation, saying AI could be used to impersonate him or generate an incorrect polling location.
He said having trust in the community and with voters is important so that “when issues do occur, you can contact them and get the correct information out.”
Worker safety
State and local elections officials also told the committee they struggled with threats to election workers.
Benson advocated for Congress to make it a federal crime to harm an election worker. She argued that many jurisdictions can’t afford private security to protect election workers who are threatened.
“They are regular people, our neighbors and community members, civil servants who drive themselves to town hall meetings, who go back and forth to their offices and homes, often dropping off or picking up children and groceries along the way,” she said.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia asked Benson how threats to election workers impact their work.
“Not only does it cause us to fear going to work… it takes us away from the actual work of administering elections every time we need to issue protections or think about our own safety,” Benson said.
Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said he’s been hearing from officials in his state about the difficulty to recruit election officials. He asked Benson if she was seeing that in Michigan.
“Yes, and it has (been difficult) since the 2020 election cycle,” Benson said.
Isaac Cramer, the executive director of the Charleston County Board Of Voter Registration and Elections in South Carolina, said…
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