It’s noon on election day and a video of Colorado’s Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold is circulating, telling people that the state’s polling places will be staying open until 10 p.m., three hours later than normal.
The problem; the video isn’t real. It’s a deepfake created by AI.
This was one of the scenarios state election workers fielded during training on artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to sow mis- and disinformation at their annual summer conference hosted this year in Grand Junction.
This is the clerks’ first ever significant state training on AI, but as deepfakes transition from being easy to spot, and sometimes comical, to taking more sophisticated forms of deception, state and local election officials say training is critical.
“What we've seen is some really convincing stuff and we started to become concerned. Like, ‘OK, if we see this in our everyday life, how quickly then do we start to see it in our elections?’” said Hilary Rudy, the Deputy Director of Elections at the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, who led the training.
“How quickly does it start to affect what people know to be true about elections?” Rudy continued. “And so really we started understanding that this is the latest tool in disinformation.”
Much of the training centered on the steps clerks and other election workers would take to address AI-generated misinformation.
In another mock scenario election staffers worked through, a fake robocall told voters there had been a shooting at a polling location.
Sitting at a table that included clerks and staff from Weld, Pitkin, Jefferson and Kit Carson counties, CPR News watched as they discussed how to get real information out to the public in the heat of Election Day.
Susan Corliss, the Republican clerk in Kit Carson County on the eastern plains, said the training will prompt her to go back and review her county’s plans.
“I think technology is advancing so fast that I do believe that all of this has to be on our radar,” said Corliss. “Even though we have our security plans, it opened up (my) eyes that we need to have a little more coverage on what could be happening … through AI on social media.”
Others at the training talked about the importance of knowing the right people to reach out to for help and additional information. The state said it was considering working with counties to use Reverse 911 to send robocalls to the public in the case of a widespread and potentially damaging disinformation campaign. Rudy said media also plays a role, but it’s especially challenging in rural areas where there are fewer local news outlets.
“I was hearing from a county (clerk) who said, ‘My last remaining newspaper is closing its doors and what does that mean?’ And so when we talk about getting information to the media and having the media help us push it out, if you live in a rural community and the only local paper publishing is three communities away and your voters aren't getting it, that creates a big challenge.”
Republican Weld County Clerk Carly Koppes said she’s tried to be proactive and has already talked to her county attorney, IT, and county sheriff about what would happen if her likeness is used in AI-generated misinformation.
“I've done so many different types of interviews and I put out a lot of educational videos – not just around elections, but my other two departments as well – that it would probably be pretty easy for somebody to do an AI fake around me,” said Koppes.
Koppes said just a few years ago AI wasn’t even part of the conversation among clerks.
“What we were talking about four years ago, going into that 2020 presidential, was more ‘how is social media going to play into it?’ Where now it's not just social media but it is the AI factor. So it has been a growing conversation.”
But even as officials contemplate worst-case scenarios, Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerk’s Association, said he doesn’t want to lose sight of the fact that AI has some good applications too. It’s about striking a balance.
“Be prepared if somebody does try to use it in a nefarious way,” he said, but don’t go overboard worrying about catastrophic things that can happen.
Election officials met under the backdrop of the trial of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is facing charges related to allegedly facilitating a security breach of her election equipment, inspired by unsupported claims of election fraud.
While the timing and location were only a coincidence, the clerks were very aware of the legal drama unfolding just down the street. Because of increased threats, security was tight, including a pair of armed guards stationed outside the venue.
“The irony is rich,” said Chris Beall, the Deputy Colorado Secretary of State when addressing the group.
“Quite a few people have been tracking that and listening to it,” said Crane. At one point, he and a few other people who weren’t participating in the AI training were all listening to the courtroom’s audio stream on their earbuds.
“A lot of the things that we had heard or that we knew (about Peters’ actions) are coming out now for the public to hear, which is good. We continue to believe that she violated her oath,” said Crane. “If she had questions about her voting systems, there's a lot of things that she could have done without allegedly stealing somebody's identity and going through and doing things in this really amateurish, undercover way that she did.”
While some clerks said they’re largely trying to ignore the trial, for a lot of them the charges and investigation into Mesa County which began in 2021 have been traumatic and personally difficult.
Koppes, who knew Peters when she was in office, plans to walk over to the courthouse at some point to attend the proceedings in person. She said it would help her put some of the pieces of the puzzle of Peters’ behavior together. Koppes said some voters in her county wanted her to do what Peters did.
“I want to really see the atmosphere and really be able to see what is going on in person. You can watch it live and that gives you some kind of perspective. But I have been personally impacted from Tina and her decisions,” said Koppes.
To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.
