As Americans headed to the polls this “Super Tuesday,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., expressed his concerns surrounding election security this year, especially as AI technology is making it easier for adversaries to deceive voters.
“If you asked me what are a couple of my hot-button issues that I am concerned about, one of the ones that comes first to mind for me is election security this year,” Sen. Warner said today during a fireside chat hosted by the Professional Services Council (PSC) in Arlington, Va.
“I would even argue the point that we are less prepared in March of 2024 under President Biden for foreign malign influence interference in our election than we were in March 2020 under President Trump,” he added.
The senator gave four reasons as to why he’s particularly concerned about election security. The first, he said, is because adversaries know it’s cheaper to interfere in an election than it is to “buy tanks and guns and ships and planes.”
The second reason he gave is because Americans have “a whole lot less faith in all our institutions, including our elections.”
Third, Sen. Warner said, is due to the upcoming Supreme Court case known as Murthy v. Missouri – a case that will examine whether Biden administration officials violated the First Amendment in their communications with social media companies regarding COVID-19 and election content.
This case will help to decide the role the Federal government can play in communicating with private social media companies when it comes to foreign threats.
Sen. Warner filed an opposition amicus brief against the case, which he said would prevent voluntary communication between the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and National Security Agency with social media companies.
“The administration has been very cautious about telling their lawyers to allow that communication to take place,” the senator said. “So, as of two weeks ago, there has been no communication since July.”
Due to the recent court actions, Sen. Warner sent a letter to CISA in January urging it to continue its election security work to address foreign malign influence in our elections.
Finally, Sen. Warner said that he’s also concerned about the use of AI tools – particularly the use of deepfakes to deceive voters.
“[These tools] at scale and speed can cause mischief in the electoral space at a level that’s totally unprecedented,” Sen. Warner said. “It makes everything the Russians did in 2016 look like child’s play. So, I am hugely concerned that we need to do more to elevate just to make sure that Americans are aware.”
The senator explained that deepfakes may not just falsely depict candidates, but they could also falsely depict “a judge or an election official tearing up ballots.”
“I do think we need to do all we can to publicly warn people about foreign interference in ‘24,” he said. “I do fear the big tech companies … these are enormously powerful companies. And we need to keep making it in their best interest to at least help us on this. That’s not a very good answer. I wish I had a better answer, but it’s something that keeps me up a lot at night.”
Sen. Warner noted the pact that 20 tech companies signed last month at the Munich Security Conference, in which they agreed to watermark AI-generated content meant to deceive voters. However, he said this pact is “still a voluntary regime.”
“That’s an area that I wish we would act on before the election, but I doubt we will,” he concluded.
