States crack down on potential AI challenges during 2024 elections
Eden Villalovas
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State lawmakers are trying to get ahead of the repercussions artificial intelligence could have on campaigns and voting as the 2024 elections near.
While AI is already used in government agencies and through outreach and advertisements in campaigns, the rapid rise of the technology concerns those worried about the spread of election misinformation and voter suppression.
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When former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies denied the result of the 2020 presidential election, attempting to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory, some states and counties became hot spots for election denialism. In Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest county, Republicans alleged fraud and illegal votes occurred in 2020. The area made headlines again in the 2022 midterm elections when doubts were cast on the election process after several vote tabulation machines malfunctioned on Election Day.
Now, the swing state is running tests with open-access artificial intelligence tools to anticipate potential threats. Arizona‘s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes stimulated different scenarios involving videos of himself and other officials spreading falsehoods to test participants’ capabilities to call out misinformation.
The Trump campaign lost multiple lawsuits in Pennsylvania trying to invalidate thousands of votes — a state Biden won by 1.2%, defeating the former Republican president by about 80,000 votes out of nearly 7 million ballots cast statewide. But some counties, including Delaware County, are still dealing with election lawsuits from the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Last week, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers introduced plans to fine candidates, campaigns, and Super PACs for using AI to represent other candidates falsely. The legislation is expected to be taken up by the Pennsylvania House in March when the session returns.
“In terms of AI, elections, and regulations, it’s the Wild Wild West. Without significant protections, artificial intelligence and ‘deep fakes’ will have a catastrophic impact on elections, creating confusion and mistrust of the system as technology evolves,” Democratic State Rep. Tarik Khan, a main co-sponsor of the bill, said. “This bill will create some of those essential protections and help to keep our elections safe, accurate, and free from misinformation tactics.”
Congress has been addressing several AI concerns going into 2024, holding meetings about the government’s oversight of the advanced technological developments.
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Speaking at a summit hosted by the Washington Post in October, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said guardrails on AI should be put in place to avoid confusion during next year’s election.
“If there’s so much good that could come out of AI, there’s also so much harm. If we don’t have government-imposed guardrails, the lowest common denominator will prevail,” Schumer said.