Arizona's election chiefs share how they fight off foreign meddling threats
Arizonaʼs top election officials discuss their battle-tested methods against foreign interference and mis-information. Security upgrades and AI-detection systems now guard the stateʼs voting process
At a recent McCain Institute talk Adrian Fontes Arizonaʼs Secretary of State shared his biggest night-time worry: dishonest politicians who spread lies for profit or power
What keeps me up at night is that we still have elected officials and candidates in this country who will purposefully lie because of grift
The states election-security team tracks three main foreign threats which Fontes calls “the RIChis:“
- Russia (making fake voting videos)
- Iran (targeting specific campaigns)
- China (focusing on local races)
Last week intelligence agencies pointed-out that foreign meddling wont stop after nov 5th; these countries might try to cause post-election chaos
Bill Gates Maricopa County Supervisor knows about election troubles first-hand - his family got death-threats after the 2020 vote count (which actually found more votes for Biden not Trump). “The mis-information looks like its from inside the US but foreign sources are well-hidden“ Gates explains
The states tabulation center now has iron-gates shatter-proof windows and armed guards. Theyʼve also got a new cyber-security chief who works with the National Guard to stop digital attacks. “Weʼve built the wall pretty solid“ Fontes says
To fight AI-made fakes the state made a special committee with tech-experts from Microsoft and OpenAI. They do practice runs that Fontes calls “dungeons & dragons for election nerds“. The team even made fake videos of Fontes speaking french to show workers what to watch for
Gates says his county gets billions of cyber-attacks every three months but theyre better ready now: “We know what might happen - its not like 2020 when we had to learn everything as it happened“
