Arizona election chief shares how foreign powers try to divide American voters
Arizonaʼs top election official discusses threats from foreign nations trying to influence upcoming presidential vote. State officials have upgraded security systems since previous elections
At a recent McCain Institute event Adrian Fontes Arizonaʼs Secretary of State shared his biggest night-time worry: politicians who spread lies for personal gain. The threat isnt just domestic – its international
What keeps me up at night is that we still have elected officials who will purposefully lie because of grift
Fontes created a simple way to remember main foreign threats which he calls “RIChis“ (Russia-Iran-China). These non-friendly countries work hard to create problems for the nov-5 election‚ targeting both presidential candidates and local races
Recent cyber-security reports show how each country picks its targets:
- Russia makes fake voting videos
- Iran tries to influence pro-trump groups
- China looks at congress races and down-ballot picks
In maricopa county (which has over 4‚5 million people) Bill Gates who leads the board of supervisors knows these problems first-hand. After 2020s vote his family got death threats‚ and he dealt with ptsd; now hes ready to retire after this election
The countyʼs election center got major security upgrades – iron gates bullet-proof glass and armed guards protect it now. Adrian Fontes hired the states first info-security chief and works with national guard to stop cyber-attacks
They also created an AI committee this summer with experts from big tech companies to fight deep-fakes. “We do dungeons & dragons style training for election staff“ Fontes explains showing how they prepare for fake videos of himself speaking foreign languages
Bill Gates says his team gets billions of cyber-attacks every three months but theyʼre better prepared now: “We know what might happen – its not like 2020 when we had to learn everything during the crisis“
