{"id":26205,"date":"2024-08-10T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-election-officials-train-on-how-to-combat-ai-misinformation\/"},"modified":"2024-08-10T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T18:00:00","slug":"colorado-election-officials-train-on-how-to-combat-ai-misinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-election-officials-train-on-how-to-combat-ai-misinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado election officials train on how to combat AI misinformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Voting
Voting booths are set up at a polling place in Newtown, Pa., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s noon on election day and a video of Colorado\u2019s Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold is circulating, telling people that the state\u2019s polling places will be staying open until 10 p.m., three hours later than normal.<\/p>\n

The problem; the video isn\u2019t real. It\u2019s a deepfake created by AI.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This is the clerks\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we’ve seen is some really convincing stuff and we started to become concerned. Like, \u2018OK, if we see this in our everyday life, how quickly then do we start to see it in our elections?\u2019\u201d said Hilary Rudy, the Deputy Director of Elections at the Colorado Secretary of State\u2019s office, who led the training.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow quickly does it start to affect what people know to be true about elections?\u201d Rudy continued. \u201cAnd so really we started understanding that this is the latest tool in disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the training centered on the steps clerks and other election workers would take to address AI-generated misinformation.<\/p>\n

In another mock scenario election staffers worked through, a fake robocall told voters there had been a shooting at a polling location.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think technology is advancing so fast that I do believe that all of this has to be on our radar,\u201d said Corliss. \u201cEven 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 \u2026 through AI on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s especially challenging in rural areas where there are fewer local news outlets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hearing from a county (clerk) who said, \u2018My last remaining newspaper is closing its doors and what does that mean?\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Weld County Clerk Carly Koppes said she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve done so many different types of interviews and I put out a lot of educational videos \u2013 not just around elections, but my other two departments as well \u2013 that it would probably be pretty easy for somebody to do an AI fake around me,\u201d said Koppes.<\/p>\n

Koppes said just a few years ago AI wasn\u2019t even part of the conversation among clerks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we were talking about four years ago, going into that 2020 presidential, was more \u2018how is social media going to play into it?\u2019 Where now it’s not just social media but it is the AI factor. So it has been a growing conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even as officials contemplate worst-case scenarios, Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerk\u2019s Association, said he doesn\u2019t want to lose sight of the fact that AI has some good applications too. It\u2019s about striking a balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe prepared if somebody does try to use it in a nefarious way,\u201d he said, but don\u2019t go overboard worrying about catastrophic things that can happen.<\/p>\n

As clerks meet in Grand Junction, a former colleague sits in a courtroom just blocks away<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony is rich,\u201d said Chris Beall, the Deputy Colorado Secretary of State when addressing the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite a few people have been tracking that and listening to it,\u201d said Crane. At one point, he and a few other people who weren\u2019t participating in the AI training were all listening to the courtroom\u2019s audio stream on their earbuds.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the things that we had heard or that we knew (about Peters\u2019 actions) are coming out now for the public to hear, which is good. We continue to believe that she violated her oath,\u201d said Crane. \u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some clerks said they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 behavior together. Koppes said some voters in her county wanted her to do what Peters did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d said Koppes.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

booths are set up at a polling place in Newtown, Pa., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)(AP Photo\/Matt Rourke) It\u2019s noon on election day and a video of Colorado\u2019s Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold is circulating, telling people that the state\u2019s polling places will be staying open until 10 p.m., three hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1556,120,266,28,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-colorado","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26205"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}