Hi, I'm Ted Simons.

Welcome to this Arizona PBS special, AZ Votes Forum Trust and Technology.

Now, voting may not be top of mind at the moment but the 2026 primary and general elections are less than a year away, and preparations are in full swing.

Arizonans expect their elections to be safe and secure, but how can government official ensure election integrity amid heightened political division and disinformation?

And as artificial intelligence increasingly permeates our lives?

Can AI tools and technology be used safely to make the election process more efficient?

We're going to look into those questions in this Arizona PBS special presentation, produced in partnership with the Arizona State University Mechanics of Democracy Lab.

Joining us no for the first of our two panels, Dana Lewis, recorder for Pinal County.

Eslir Musta, the elections director and assistant county manager for Coconino County.

Bill gates, director of th ASU Mechanics of Democracy Lab and the former chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

And David Becker, executive director and founder of the center for Election Innovation and Research.

Thank you all for being here.

It's good to have you.

Looking forward to this discussion.

And, Bill we're going to start with you.

Much of what we're going to talk about reflects a changing environmen in terms of elections from where you sit, from where you said how much change is going on.

Well, I think that you're seeing part of a, an evolution that's been going on throughout the past few years here in Arizona and really across the country, but particularly in Arizona.

Elections officials are under a microscope.

People are watching everything that's being done.

And elections officials have responded by swinging the doors open with providing even more transparency.

So to me that's the biggest difference, is that people are watching every piece of the process.

And I think that's good for elections officials and it's good for democracy.

Dana, are you seeing that as a county recorder?

Absolutely, Ted.

I think from where we were just a few years ago and to where the progress and elections is going, it's energizing and it's inspiring and, lucky to be blessed with such a great team.

But but being under a microscope brings some challenges, doesn't it?

I like to on the side of happiness and positivity.

But you're right.

We're constantly under a microscope.

There, we have audit trails.

We train our our staff, but still, it's a still there's a human factor to everything that we do.

And people dismiss that as silly or.

What are you seeing as far as the way things were and the way things are, and how people want to see them to be in the future?

Well, we are seeing very similar, demands on the election officials across across the board.

I want to point out that being the second largest county in, in the in the country, we have some challenges and some, opportunities that are very different than the than the like the more urban parts of the, of the state.

But we are doing the same basic, basic principles, and we're doing those, basic principles, in accordance with the law and bringing a lot of transparenc and making sure that everybody that participates in the election process understand fully what those standards are.

And we are, collaborating with, with everyone to, to make sure that they understand that.

And then we, follow through with all of them.

And, David, you can hav a wide angle view of all this.

What do you see?

Well I think, the more things change, the more they stay the same in many ways.

I mean, from the voters perspective here in Arizona and really nationwide, they're going to experience something very similar to what they've experienced in past elections.

They're going to be voting o paper ballots here in Arizona, as they do throughout the nation.

98% of all ballots or paper ballots, which are auditable, verifiable recount of all their audit that are going to be conducted to confirm that the technology counted the votes accurately.

And that's going to be a transparent process.

Voters here in Arizona have an easy time registering to vote.

There's online voter registration.

Arizona was the very first state to implement online voter registration in 2002.

It is easy to cast a ballot in Arizona.

It's easy to vote early if voters choose to, as most Arizonans do, and it's easy to vote o Election Day if they choose to.

And that's actually very consistent with the rest of the nation as well, where 47 state allow early voting in some form.

So a lot of people, what we're seeing a trend is more more and more people casting their ballots early appeal.

Much of what is discussed regarding elections comes out of the elections procedures.

Man, boy, do we talk about that a lot.

What is that manual?

What is what is it designed to do and what does it accomplish?

Yeah.

So this is designed t kind of it's not actually law, but it has the force of law as has been established and reestablished by the Arizona Supreme Court.

So this sort of fills the gaps in where the law is silent on certain things.

And it's a it's a document that's put together by the Arizona Secretary of State, of course, in collaboratio with county elections officials.

And then it's it.

And so it then puts in place how we're supposed to be running elections in Arizona.

And it's fundamental, especially given, you know, the close to close election that we have in here in Arizona.

It's good to have that map, that roadmap on how elections are to be run.

And in how does it help make for good elections?

Absolutely.

Statut is by legislators and lawyers.

And so most election officials are neither.

So the elections procedur manual does give us a blueprint, about what next steps are, you know, diving into simple things like recall elections or initiatives.

Those are difficult things that even in title 19 are difficult to understand sometimes.

So we're able to utiliz the EPM, as an assistive tool.

Yeah, actually, it seems like though with there's there's always a little bit of controversy, a little bit of questionable fussing and fighting over the elections manual.

Why is that?

But definitely, the election procedure manua has gotten a lot of attention.

But I think one o the biggest thing that it does, it allows counties to adjust and, and, according to the, the needs of each of the community, like I said earlier, that like, urban areas hav a different set of challenges.

The EPM allows for the flexibility to interpret the within the, the, the under the same Arizona rights statute to interpret like procedures and processes that makes sense for smaller communities.

We have like a polling location at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

It's, it's a 200 person, precinc that we have to hold elections there, that that whol experience running an election, and then precincts that are significantly very different from an urban area where you have the technology access, and the tools to get in and out of the polling place, fairly quickly.

So the EPM serve as the umbrella, for all of us for actually, and it gives us the flexibility to do the job that we need to do to, to serve the voters where they are.

And, David, do other states have something similar to, the election procedure manual here in Arizona?

It varies greatly.

It's it might not be called a manual.

It might be some guidance or standards that are set out by a secretary of state's office or a state election board, but it it performs a really important function.

And that important function is it sets out the rules of the election in advance of the election.

And if anyone has any problems with those rules, they can litigate them as they've done much here in Arizona to make sure that a court has ruled in the rule of law holds sway over the election.

But once the election happens everyone understands those rules and we should understand when particularly losing candidates might complain about those rules.

Post election, they had every opportunity to challenge them before the election.

It's importan to set those rules in advance, but again, it has the force of law, but not the rule of law.

Well, it's not a law.

It's not a law that's been passed by the legislature, signed by the governor.

But it has the force of law.

And that's why, to David's point, it's that's why you've seen th litigation in advance over it.

But that's why it's also important for people to understand once the, the, pursuit of judicial, remedies has been exhausted, the people need to recognize this is the law as it relates to elections in the state of Arizona.

Yeah.

And David, back to you real quickly, is can this be used as a best practices manual because it' part of what this is all about?

Certainly that's part of it.

But it has force of law.

So it goes probably beyon what a best practice would be.

It sets standard that every one of the counties in Arizona should follow.

So we know that throughout the state, the same standards are applying generally implement at the nuts and bolts level what the legislature might have passed through statute.

And again very importantly, making clear that these are the rules as we go into the election and you can't come out after the election if your candidate or campaign happen to los and complain about those rules, if you didn't challenge them before.

As a county recorder are you satisfied with Arizona's elections procedure manual o can you see some changes there?

Oh, Ted, what a great question.

So again, when we talk about litigation with the EPA, you know, we see the hierarchy of car being, of course, Constitution and state law statute and the the elections procedure manual.

And sometimes that area can get a little gray.

So it is in the best interes to then go to either legislature or litigation to ensure that we have that clarity.

I will say we are a bottom up state in Arizona that's really important to recognize.

So when we have rural communities and counties, you know, everybody looks at Maricopa County and Pima County, their largest, you know, is Pinal County.

And we have 300,000 registrants.

Still large, but not as large as the big boys.

But still it takes those rural communities and it gives us a baseline to operate in accordance with each other.

Voters move around the state of Arizona a lot.

And so it's really nice when they can go fro Coconino County to Pinal County.

And that experience is similar.

And last point on this, the EPA if you have a problem with it, if you see something that needs to be addressed, how easy is that process?

Well, the EPA is developed through the collaboration with the with the counties and the recorder's office, the Board of supervisors, the attorney general, like the secretary of state, that takes the lead role.

So in that process there's a lot of back and forth that goes into like identifying some of the challenges and some of the issues from previous election cycles in order to to ensure that the new EPM, is satisfying all those others of those standards.

But again, to me, the EPM is more of like harmonizin some of the overall practices, but still allowing that in the counties, the ability to, to implement their own procedures and processes in place that better serve the communities that, that, that are residing in those, those counties.

All right.

Bill, I want to stick with you and start with you, I should say, on this one, and we can move around the panel, the division of responsible party regarding elections, let's say.

Oh, I don't know, between the Board of Supervisors and the county recorder.

Why do you ask?

Let' just throw that one out there.

How is that division of responsibility mandated?

And, again where can improvements be found and where does he thin that's doing a really good job?

So back to the Arizona legislature.

They have created a system in place.

It divides responsibilities between the recorder and the Board of Supervisors.

Essentially, recorders are responsible for vote registration and vote by mail.

The boards of supervisors are responsible for Election day voting, tabulation of the vote, and certifying.

Now, just because the statutes say that, it doesn't mean that those folks cannot negotiate with one anothe and set things up differently.

And we've seen that over the years.

Maricopa County, back when Helen Purcell was the recorder, she had basicall everything under her other than, you know, the board to just kind of approved the budget the polling places and certify.

Then when I was on the board we on the Board of Supervisors took bac our statutory responsibilities because we felt like with the county with 4.5 million people, it makes sense to have six people over elections as opposed to just one.

But there was blowback an there still is blowback to that.

Yeah.

So this is a thing again, i the wisdom of the legislature, it's really I like to think of it as almost a check and balance system.

And I think David can tell you it's not that way in every state.

But this check and balance system, if you allow it to work the way that the legislature has created what it does is i does lead to tension sometimes.

But the good thing is, the people that I've always worked with, in elections, whether they're recorder or board of supervisors, the focus has been on running safe, secure elections and the voters having a great experience.

And, David, I want to get to you in a second.

But as far as what you see in Pinal County, division of response, you're smiling again.

Another good question.

Division of responsibilities.

What you what do you think Canal Count is a little different right now?

Pinal County, does not have an election director.

And, I act under an MoU, as the officer in charge of elections in Pinal County.

So the responsibilities, stil that are required of the Board of Supervisors still are accomplished by the board.

The canvasing, the tabulation.

But, day to day operations now fall under myself.

If and when you get an elections director.

How's that going to work out?

It's going to be fantastic, I keep forgetting.

Yes, everything's positive down there.

And absolutely the sun never should know.

We saw in 2020 there was like, a mass exodus of electio officials between threats and, you know, they they were at retirement age and they went on to do great things after that.

But they left some major holes in our spaces.

We saw across the state many people try to bring in, election officials.

But if you haven't had experience at the county level again, there can be some problems.

So we're working on, cultivating internal talent.

All right.

Very good.

David, what do you see around the country?

What are you and Arizona is?

Well, what do you see here as far as that tension that bill talked about?

Well, Arizona's a little unusual.

And Maricopa is in particular unusual in that it bifurcates these responsibilities and in such a way.

But we should remember, Maricop is one of the largest counties in the entire United States in terms of population.

We've heard criticism of the relative responsibilities from Republicans when a Democrat was in one office and from Democrats when a Republican isn't in office.

I think one of the things I look at is, regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat is controlling one of the two offices, for instance, in Maricopa County, decentralization tends to be a strength of our system overall in the United States.

It's one of the things that makes our system so resilient against fraud or cyberattacks or even large mistakes.

It's a way of double checking, different entities who might control parts of the process.

It encourages transparency.

So these are the kinds of things Arizonans in particular, should take a great deal of pride in and know when they're going.

The supervisors are looking over the shoulder.

The recorder is looking over the supervisor shoulder.

Hopefully they'll come together with a very clear understanding of relative responsibilities.

But those are the kinds of things that lead to confidence in th election to lead to confidence.

But as Bill mentioned when Helen Purcell was running the recorder's office in Maricopa County, we didn't have these kinds of forums.

These kinds of things didn't happen.

And that was centralization.

You're saying decentralization though, allows for X to guard Y and Decentral is such a strength of the system.

And going back to when Helen Purcell was, was recorder, that was a time where election officials were largely anonymous.

People didn't know what they did.

I mean, you would have a hard time at a party describing what you did on a day to day basis.

Now we see election officials in Arizona nationwide, often not only known very well, but sometimes targeted for abuse and harassment based on perceptions of their work.

So I think right now we've got we're living in a very different time.

And the more that we can create transparency and checks and balance in the process, as Arizona has, the better we're going to be in terms of confidence or decentralization or centralization.

Where do you stand?

What do you think?

I definitely think that decentralization and the autonomy that exists, that is, is a good, positive thing because it serves as a checks and balance for, the work that we we do.

And I think it's, and not uncommon, but like both the Board of Supervisors record like and Coconino County case, we share the same visio of providing voter accessibility and the best service and experience for voters.

And we have to do it in these, heightened, transparency and bringing, in people into into the processes in a way that, has not been done and has not been the case before.

But that is the opportunity that we all need to rise up to and, and, and embrace in this, in this day and age.

Yeah, yeah.

Bill, after the most recent election, I believe, with the not I mean, most recent election, I believe it was.

Yeah.

Three ballots were found, ballots were found after the election, as far as you know.

Obviously you're not on the board anymore, but as far as, you know, what happened with that?

And how do you keep somethin like that from happening again?

Yeah.

So they had, one of the vote centers, they had people had dropped off their ballots there, and they were in one of these transparent boxes.

In the ease of getting those ballots back to central tabulation, they put them into into a box that's not translucent.

It's the one with the good old door three that we know.

So it was placed in there and brought in, to the central tabulation center.

They didn't open it up on the day.

But here's the important thing to remembe is that they were under, seals.

They were tamper evidence seals throughout.

And so a couple days later, they were going through doing their checks.

They discovered them, pulle them out, they were processed, and they were counted before the canvass, from what you understand, is a county working on making sure this doesn't happen again.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

This was something sort of unique.

This was a jurisdictional election.

There was a lot of bon elections and things like that.

They were trying something.

They were testing out a process.

And I. I'm very confident that this will not, you know, occur in the future.

Dana, when problems do occur and they do occur even in Pinal County.

How best to address those problems?

What do you do to make sure that the voter confidence doesn't lag?

How do you address them to make sure they don't happen again?

Don't make excuses.

Identify the problem.

Get out there.

Have the conversation with your board.

With your public, with your voters.

You want to be there identifying what the problem was, thinking and brainstorming about what you're going to do to fix it so it doesn't happen again.

But again, it's about communication.

These are human processes.

Errors will happen.

And we also need to make sure that we're taking care of our staff as well.

Because when that error does happen, we want to make sure we're no alienating and alienating them.

We want to keep them as part of our process.

Absolutely agree with that.

Absolutely.

And I think one of the biggest things that we always talk in our county about having a great election day in, not so goo election day, is that there is that human error, lik the equipment can malfunction.

Something can can happen that can sidetrac and create issues and problems, on Election day.

But it's good to understand that, and parse out what's what's the human error and an issue that does not jeopardize the the, the system and the outcom of the, of the process, rather than, trying to, like, point fingers and and assign blame.

And I think that's the biggest thing that we've, have learned to, to, to account for it to be, mindful and to work as a team to, to, to address prio to like these issues, do happen.

But again, I think the that the line between a great election day and and not so good one can be pretty slim and sometimes invisible.

David.

Yeah.

I mean, I think, I think it's a great point that, there's never been a perfect election run in the United States.

A major presidential election is where we have 160 million Americans doing something they don't do very often, in a process run by million plus volunteers all over the country under various standards in the different states.

And there are going to be mistakes.

An election system is not built to avoid or guarantee there are no mistakes.

It is built to be resilient against any human error that might occur.

And that's where the transparency and the decentralization and the training and the manual and everything else comes in.

And that's why at the end, even if there was some error, voters can be confident that the ballots as cast by the voters were counted accurately and the right outcome was reached.

All right.

That said, Dana, I'm going to start with you on this one.

What concerns you most about next year's elections?

There has been some recent movement with, things politically in the state of Arizona.

There's a new we called them the No Labels party.

They have recently changed their name with the secretary of state's office.

I think we need to start communicating about what that process looks like now.

I think that's going to be called the Arizona Independent Party is going to create a huge amount of confusion for our voters.

When we have open primaries where, you know, they can request a ballo if they're a nonpartisan voter, then being called independent, I think is going to create a lot of confusion for Arizona voters.

We're really blessed.

We have a great relationship where the Arizona Clean Elections Commission, partnering with them to make sure we're gettin that information out to voters because we don't want them on Election Day.

Being confused at the polls and taking that out on poll workers.

So we're going to start now t start crafting some messaging.

Interesting, Bill, what concerns you most as we look to next year?

Yeah.

So the biggest concern for me is what role is the federal government going to play in the 2022 and 2024 elections?

Federal government was a tru partner like in Maricopa County.

I can speak to my personal experience.

I think a lot of the other elections officials would say the same thing.

So that as that relates t cybersecurity, is that relates to the physical security of, voting locations and the physical security of those workers who do it.

Volunteers and otherwise.

So I am an optimist.

I'm hoping, that we're going to see them be cooperative.

But that is the thing that I have my eye on.

And, I hope that, that will work out well and we'll have a very successful election.

I feel really good about the, elections officials at the local, state and local level, they're ready for 2026.

So you're ready for 2026.

And, what concerns you most?

What are you watching the most?

Well we are definitely taking lessons learned from the previous election cycles and honing into that to doing the basics very well and, and making sure that we are incorporating some of the legislative changes and, rulings that that, come down from, from the courts.

I think the biggest thing for us as a, as a count is we pride ourselves in voter participation and increasing that voter participation.

And the biggest challenge I see is that with so much, noise and so much, information and misinformatio sometimes about voting as a, as a civic duty and an opportunit that people are going to like, stay away from the from the polls.

And I think that's the last thing that we want to see as a as a county, like people being, kind of frozen out of the system and not and not willing to participate, because of the level of mistrust or misjudgment that, that could exist in the, in the community.

And we're really, putting some effort into, like, building those partnerships, then building trust and, and, relationships with different, groups within our county.

Yeah.

David, what what are you looking at next year?

Well, first, what I'm not worried about is whether professionals like Slayer, Dana and Bill's former colleagues in America, the county board, are going to run a good, transparent, verifiable election with clear results afte all of the ballots are counted.

That's going to happen nationwide because election officials have been doing this under enormous stress and pressure for a long time.

And every bit of their work has withstood scrutiny.

The last few elections are the most scrutinized elections probably in world history, and they've withstood that scrutiny every time.

But to echo a point, that Bill made, I am a little worried that we're seeing the federal government intrud upon the state's constitutional right to have authority over their own elections.

Article one.

Section four of the Constitution is called the elections clause.

Sets a time, place and manner of regulating elections is left to the state legislatures or to Congress, and where Congress has not chimed in, that means the states hav authority over these elections.

And we're seeing the white House, especially in the executiv branch, try to exert authority over these in ways I don't think we've seen, certainly in modern American history.

And we should keep a close eye on that, because, frankly, I think Arizonans are best served when Arizonans run their own elections.

I think that's true in every other state with their own state legislatures and their own state election officials.

Washington should probably not be dictating to the states how it has how best to serve their own voters.

Well, you have a very limited time left.

So I want to just a brief sentence from all of you, Dana, we'll start from you.

What makes a good election?

The people who administer it?

Absolutely.

We follow the law.

We believe in audits.

We stand by the rule of law.

It's the people and the passion, that they bring to it.

But the voters need to turn out.

So 29 days before an election, remember?

And we registered to vote.

Early voting starts 27 days before your cover ballots go out, 45 days before communication.

That's what it is.

All right.

It's clear what makes a good election.

Well, it's definitely the people that administer elections.

And again, using the network of, of, professionals throughout the, the state and relying on all of those people to, to help build, the ecosystem that is the election, election day and support one another.

What do you think, David?

I'd say transparency and professionalism, which are already in large supply here in Arizona and elsewhere.

And I also think one of the things that makes the best possible election is when members of the community volunteer to help out and pitch in and learn about elections by serving as poll workers and volunteers.

Anyone who has any doubts about how an election system is run and whether it's secure or not, they should volunteer to be a poll worker.

And those those doubts will be resolved very fast as you realize all the checks and balances and the transparencies and the redundancie that are built into the system.

Last word Bill.

So I love this question because this is somethin that the mechanics of Democracy Laboratory is studying right now.

We're working with our partners, like the center for the Future of Arizona, asking Arizona voters what they think makes a good election.

And then we'll be convening leaders and community members in the months ahead on that very question.

All right.

Very good panel.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And for their insight and their perspective on Arizona can ensure election integrity in 2026.

Dana Lewis, Eslir Musta and we have David Becker and we of course we have Bill gates.

We appreciate you joining you joining us as well.

I should say we're going to return in a moment here now with a second group of panelists for a discussion on the dangers that deepfakes pose to our elections and how I might be beneficial for voters.

We'll be right back.

Elections for presiden and other high profile offices often get the most attention, but state and local races have an even bigger impact on everyday life.

Once voted into office, elected leaders are tasked with answering important questions like a proposed road projec be prioritized for completion.

Sometimes voters are asked to weigh in on these issues through ballot initiatives which have the same legal weight as if they were passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.

Welcome back to this Arizona PBS special, AZ Votes Forum Trust and Technology, produced in partnership with the Arizona State University Mechanics of Democracy Lab.

We've examined the trust issue in our elections process as we gear up for midterm primarie and general elections in 2026.

Now we turn to technology the good, the bad, and all points in between.

Our panelists, Michael Moore, the chief information security officer at the Arizona Secretary of State's office, Doctor Alison Lester, an assistant teaching professor and action research scholar at Arizona State University.

And Bill gates, director of th ASU mechanics of Democracy Lab and the former chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

Thank you all for joinin us.

It's good to have you here.

Boy, this is going to be a discussion.

Going to be very interestin because it can be very confusing to a lot of folks, hopefully not to you guys, but we'll see about that.

Let's start with why not AI and Bill, let's start with why not you?

How is it affecting our lives in terms of elections?

Well, you know, that's a great question.

In 2024, it was sort of from a negative perspective.

I think we were for those of us in elections, we were very concerned about deepfakes.

You know, these videos that would be made sort of these, of having someone like me or someone else in elections putting out misinformation.

Fortunately, we didn't end up facing that.

So we were concerned about it ready for it didn't occur now at the Mechanics and Democracy Laboratory.

As we move into 2025, we're continuing to, make sure that we're keeping our elections safe from AI.

But also we're taking a look a actually, how I could help us, help elections officials to run elections more efficiently and potentially improve the voter experience.

Yeah.

Same question, doctor Lester, as far as AI and its impact on the elections, on our lives in general.

Oh my goodness, on our lives in general.

AI is everywhere, whether we know it or not.

And I think that is something to slow down and think about.

Yeah.

And but it's slow down and think about.

But I mean, think about one thing doing something about it's another.

Oh yes.

Completely.

I think in my classroom at ASU, I always, start the semester when we're talking about AI is if when, how, if we're going to use AI, when are we going to use it and how we're going to use it and thinking really intentionally about the use.

Yeah, yeah.

Michael, what what do you see out there with elections and just society in general and I yes, sir.

I, I tend to be someon who leans forward pretty heavily into AI and back in 2023, actually, we started doing tabletop exercises for election officials, and we started generating, for them, deepfake content and other synthetic types of content, cloning people's voices, likenesses to demonstrate to them.

Here's the level of the technology.

And we've continued to do that since then, to make sure that they're aware of, how it can be used to create disinformation, how it can be used to try and trick the population.

It's something that's deeply concerning to me that, foreign adversarie or domestic folks that aren't, really in favor of democracy, trying to manipulate things and confuse voters and trick them.

In our persona lives, it seems like it's it's incorporated into more and more things.

I have a Google Home Hub, and it told me it was going to update itself the other day to, the new AI model.

So I was like, okay, that's that's quite interesting.

It it's something that I think everyone should be concerned about, but I would liken it to a this is a very similar to t when the internet was released.

Right.

Like we have this opportunity to to have the foresight.

How did that affect society.

This is probably going to be pretty similar.

Yeah.

Doctor lizard it feels well, maybe a little like calm before the storm though, especially when it comes to the voting process and elections and things that we really, really don't want.

Deepfakes or any kind of fake being involved in.

Oh, yeah.

I think, is it calm before the storm or the storm already here is always, kind of play in that space, with it, especially how fast technology rapidly evolves, we can't keep up with it.

It's impossible to keep up with.

But when we're looking at misinformation, when misinformation can sprea six times faster than the truth.

Oh, we need to slow down and think about it.

And also be critically aware of what we're posting and sharing and verifying that information.

Yeah.

And at the Democracy Lab, I mean, are the goalposts moving all the time when it comes not just to AI, but technology in general?

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

I mean, it is just like I said you know, going from last year where we were very much focused on, I mean, emphasizing or not using AI.

At Maricopa County to now where we're saying, you know, and this is what's to me, one of the most powerful things about AI in elections.

It's not Maricopa County, Maricopa County has a lot of employees, a lot of resources, always needs more.

But, you know, well resourced.

But we're particularly focused on these small jurisdictions.

Maybe they have two people running an election office in the power of AI, when use properly, with the proper guardrail in place, can make that office more efficient, can, you know, help create a communication plan, create an elections plan.

And we know that legislators across the country are making changes all the time to elections.

AI is a tool that can help those elections officials to respond quickly and pivo quickly, based upon how the laws might be changing and election infrastructure in general.

Michael, I mean, I yes and other aspects, technological aspects of the infrastructure.

I know you had a hacking threat earlier this year that was well publicized.

We talked about it on the show and everything like that.

Is that something again?

Is that or is that going to be more of an experience as we get closer to th election, or what do you think?

I see no reason that it should not be.

So, as a chief information security officer, I'm also an ethical hacker or a white hat hacker.

My job is to think like a bad guy, but then try to get ahead of them.

And these tools enable.

It's a force multiplier, enables great good for defenders, but also, great destruction capacity for adversaries.

So we're seeing when there are vulnerabilities that are being discovered instead of 1 or 2 organizations being attacked.

They're it's happening at a huge scale.

That's a strong indicatio that automation is being used.

And it just makes sense that the bad guys are using, generative AI for thi and for that hacking incident.

Again, this was outward facing infrastructure.

There were no tabulation problems involved at all.

Yes, sir.

That's correct.

Our website was very brief.

I'm not, dismissing the seriousness of it by any means, but our website was briefly defaced with an image of Iran's ayatollah from the past.

It's something that we detected very quickly.

We're able to, recover very quickly.

Yeah.

Doctor lesser to the sound like we're going to be able to recover quickly when all these things come flying at us.

Yeah, I think yes.

You think so?

Yeah, I do, I do, because I think that we're getting wiser and smarter with understanding AI, being faced with AI, being able to have a a leve of critical awareness with it.

I think that what Bill and Michael do in their, AI bootcamps and bringing people in, to learning about the technology, that's what I do with my students and bring yo and you learn and understand AI.

And in addition we co-create policies and values and all that stuff.

All of that.

Education is what we need.

And it's more and more and more.

And I'm seeing so much of the trend on teaching good use of technology.

So I believe in it.

So while I agree with Ellison's optimism, in this instance, the adversary did not time their attac to be remotely near an election.

If they had, that would have been much more destructive if they had attacked all Arizona county websites at the same time, if they attacked all elections websites nationwide at the same time, that would have been much more disruptive not to literally the actual tabulation of the vote, but an erosion of confidence from the voter.

And I was going to ask about that bill.

I mean obviously the Nando tabulation issues were there, but it was a hack.

It did get through.

And we're talking AI and everyone know they think they know what AI is.

Not sure everyone really knows what it is, but they think they know.

And if you put that in with elections, all of a sudde the question mark start flying.

Yes.

And and this is wha I tell people when I talk about I really I is nothing new in this election space.

When you talk about people trying to use it to, erode confidence in and trust in elections, this is the sort of thing we've been dealing with now for several years.

It's coming in a different direction.

And so that's wh we need to continue to push back by providing information, by providing the facts, do things like what Maricopa County did, you know, had all these conspiracy theories.

So what they do, they created just the facts that vote a website where all those conspiracy theories were answered.

And I do see AI having that ability to quickly, let's say there's a post that's put out there, and they use AI to put it on all these different platforms, spreading misinformation.

Well, we can now defensively use AI to quickly write one post, and I can put it into all the different whether it's LinkedIn, X, etc.

and also translate for example, translation.

That's a tough that's a difficult area.

You have to get experts in use a lot of resources.

AI is incredibly good at translating.

Elections material into several different language.

That's an interesting concept.

They're using AI to fight AI.

That makes sense to you.

Yeah.

Makes sense to me.

Yeah.

It does I it does because I, I spent a lot of that space and thinking about okay AI holds great power to help u and also great power to harm us.

And then how do we think really intentionally about the use with AI.

And I do I think that when we can design tools that can combat AI and misinformation and deepfakes and educate people, to your point, Bill, of what you're saying of we designed this website.

My though when I was listening to you was, yeah, that website is good, but it's only good when we can bring people in to know about it and the awareness of i and teach it and educate people on it, and also bring people in the design of it.

And I think the more people are involved in understanding the technology, using the technology, helping to design the technology, that's that's our win.

Yeah, yeah.

You mentioned boot camps to talk more about that.

What what what's involved there, what's taught, what's experienced and what kind of results you seen.

Yes, sir.

So, tomorrow is actually our first, boot camp for election officials, and we're going to go hands on keyboard with them.

I've been to plenty of conferences that, they tell you I can do anything and everything.

And that's that's plenty fine.

But for me, I'm much more tackle.

I want people to go hands on, not just hear about what I can do for them, but literally do it.

So we've developed, a serie of exercises and bonus material, to engage folk and get them to practice using AI to, solve offices, solve, you know, business problems that they might experience in the office or even in their personal life.

Yeah, yeah.

And we're really excited to be partnering with with Arizona Secretary of State's office and also the elections group, on this effort.

So we've got thi we've got a couple boot camps.

We're going to run here in Arizona.

We're also going to be running one in Washington, DC, in LA in Chicago.

So it's really a national effort to help educate elections officials and give them the opportunity to deal with real world scenarios.

You mentioned, you know, usin AI to fight the bad parts of AI.

Mike, I want to go with you on this one.

Would AI in its current form helped with some of the disinformation that we saw two years ago, some of the disinformation we saw five years ago.

I mean, let's let's go back in time.

Well, let's do a science fiction thing here.

Would have been a good thing to have AI around back then.

Foof.

That's complicated.

Yeah.

Yes and no.

Like it would.

It would help, but also make the problem worse.

Right.

So people that are putting out conspiracy theories, either they're true believers or they're trying to dissuade the American population can use these tools to better polish their message.

Right.

If you write in all caps and have grammar errors and maybe don't even speak English, you can suddenly have a much more sophisticated, complete bit of nonsense set to trick the American voters.

We can use these same tools to help research and debunk.

And that's actually one of the lessons that we are doin at our bootcamp tomorrow.

Yeah.

Doctor Lester the idea of AI back in the day, I mean, would that have been a good thing?

Obviously we would have ramped up to it as we're ramping up to it now.

So there's a there's a variation there.

But, what do you think?

I think back in the day it felt slower.

It felt like we had more of a pause.

Or maybe, maybe it even felt more insidious in the shadow.

We didn't quite see it.

Now it is so in our faces, in every conversation.

I was, I was, I, I was getting my nails done before I came here.

And while I was getting my nails done, I was sitting and I was listening to students talking about AI in in their learning in their classroom and they're prepping for a quiz.

And one it was writing an exam, and it and it just feels lik the conversations are happening all over.

It's in your face and and part of that is the the market, the investment, the commercialism o getting us to, invest in an AI.

But it also we're seeing it just come alive in a way that we haven't.

And that to me is both concerning because it goes too fast.

And then it also changes the situation.

Well, and again, this conversation is on technology and so far it has been dominated by AI.

Are we is there a threat that we're becoming too dependent on AI?

Yes, I think there is.

And I'm I'm not sure it could have been Michael Moore.

I'm not sure who came up with this analogy, but I think it's great.

We should think of AI lik a really, really smart intern.

Okay, if you have I do work and just turn it in.

It's going to be a problem.

Treat it like you would work from a smart intern.

You know, but still review it.

You have to keep that human in the loop.

So that is definitely one of my concerns.

Not only that, we're not thinking any more.

We're not using those critical thinking skills, but also that we're starting to lose our humanity.

So these are the thing that we're also focusing on as we look at AI.

You want to take credit for that intern comment?

I heard it from, kick only former, assistant director for Cisco.

All right.

But I would add to that, like, one of the, kind of rules of thumb that I'm trying to develop for recommending it on AI is don't ask it a question that you lack the expertise to know whether the answer is correct or not.

You are the expert.

It's not the expert.

Wow.

That's asking an awful lot.

I mean goodness gracious I thought of what I was for.

It can help you research.

It can help you learn things quicker quicker.

But you need to check the citations.

And like if you just think you can go to this and ask a question that you have no idea, you want it to program something for you, it'll give you an answer confidently, but it's probably not necessarily going to be a correct answer.

Yeah, yeah.

Doctor Lesser, are we becoming too dependent on AI?

This is something I think about with overreliance and offloading our critical thinking skills to AI and and so, when I teach about fact checking sources, we use the sift model.

So stop, investigate, find better sources and trace the claims.

And you have to do the same thing on AI and hallucinates, which is a word that we use for mistakes.

And and that is alarming.

So you have to stay awake and aware while you're using it which is easier said than done.

Yep.

Yeah.

Well, and you know, honestly, from a journalistic standpoint, you check your sources, you double check and make sure everything.

But if you're doing this and you're double checking and you're seeing if they got it right, what good is it?

I just did all the work myself.

Well, let me jump in there.

Yes.

Because two things.

One, we live in a world of information fatigue, so to say to to us here and those, listening, watching that.

Oh, you just need to keep fact checking.

Fact checking.

Traceback claims.

I'm going to, double back just a little bit because in this age of information fatigue, it is hard to use your critica thinking skills and fact check when you're exhausted.

Our US in Arizona dehydrated, dehydrated and exhausted.

And it's it takes a lot of energy and that's that awareness piece to understand.

Maybe I shouldn't post and share this, information if I don't, I'm not fact checking.

I don't have the energy to fact check it.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, good luck with that.

We've seen social media lately.

I know, I did digital literacy is kind of overseeing what we're talking here.

I know kind of the roof on top of what we're talking here.

How much of a concern is the state of digital literacy as we speak?

Cuz one of the biggest concern that I have, and it's something that the doctor, Lester and I have been collaborating on, and it, it runs across to different generations.

And frankly, mayb as we go up in the generations, it becomes even more of a challenge.

Every once in a while, my dad sends me a video.

I'm like, dad, that's a that's a deep fake.

Sorry.

But, you know, all kidding aside, I mean, it's something that is serious because we have people that are reaching, snap conclusions, and they're making decisions as voters, as consumers that are based on, you know, inaccurate information.

So we can't the more time I spend talking about AI and elections and looking at this issue, then more and more I feel like digital literacy is at the heart of it.

Yeah.

And it has to be at the heart of what you do.

Michael.

Agree completely.

This is very similar to, I' the information security guys.

I'm the one who's always doing user awareness training saying, please stop clicking on that.

Please have a nice long password.

Please use multi-factor authentication.

This is the same sort of thing when you see something on the internet, especially if it create a big emotional reaction in you.

Who made it?

Why did they make it?

What do they want you to think and feel and do?

Is it even real?

Yeah, and I was going to ask Doctor Lester, how do you know when you're depending too much on AI?

I know that overreliance piece of it.

It is hard.

It is hard.

And I, in the classroom, slow down my students.

Digital literacy, I want to say is, understanding the technology that we use to access information and interpret information.

And when I'm teaching and I'm teaching in four different elements, one are the mindsets I'm trying to foster.

Those are the curiosity, the skepticism, the empathy, the perspective taking the practical skills we've been talking about that the fact checking.

What is a credible source, how do you locate those credible sources?

Then it's the civic responsibility that we have a responsibility for what we post and share in the digital space to help it remain true.

And lastly, is that awareness piece, which is that understanding that emotional hijacking you were mentioning of, their posts get rewarded by engagement.

So they're trying to trigger that emotion from you whether it's anger or sadness, whatever it can to get you to share, to get you to watch and engage with it.

And all of those thing when you are becoming dependent on the technology, that is where I hope people have support systems or awareness in the self to pull back, see that dependency that's happening, that overreliance.

And in the classroom, I recognize it and I slow my students down.

Yeah, Michael, when it comes to elections, though, with so much, concern concentration and focus on AI, other technology, is it kind of getting lost out there, the emphasis on that?

Is there the same kind of emphasis on the things that were emphasiz Well, I would say one thing that's concerning to me is that people conflate, election equipment with things that are not, necessarily on tabulation networks.

So one o the things that we talk about is your vote is counted on machines that are never connected to the internet.

And then people say, oh, but this election website is connected to the internet.

Of course it is.

Right?

That's the whole point of a website, right?

Things like, you know, your people book that.

It helps you check in.

It's not a bug.

It's a feature that that thing is connected to the internet, that it connects to the voter registration database and is able to determine, are you getting the right ballot printed for you?

Have you already attempted to vote?

Yeah.

What do you think about that idea though, that AI is getting so much attention, that other aspects of technology that might be used for nefarious purposes regarding elections might be slipping under cover?

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's it's really interesting to be talking about AI in the context of elections, because what we've seen in the last 5 or 6 years is that we have people that feel like the tabulation machine technology, which has been around for decades, is more technology than some people want, right?

Right.

They want us to go to hand counts.

So then they go in the other direction to talk about AI.

I think it's an important discussion.

It's happening whether we want it to or not.

But but to sort of see one, one group of individuals wanting to go sort of back in time and then another group wanting to go to the future, that creates a real challenge for our elections officials, because they have to be able to talk to everyone.

You don't get to pick and choose your voters, right, right, right.

And even outside of elections, doctor, let's the idea of whoa is, as you say, slow down.

Some people say stop and go in reverse because I'm not comfortable.

I want to go back to certain aspects of society.

Pre I, what's when someone says that to you, how do you respond?

Well I say great, as long as you can name your values and you stand by your values.

That is ethical practice and I believe in it.

In my classroom I have students who are excited, who are skeptical, who are AI resistant, and all ar welcome in the classroom space.

And what we d in the beginning of the class is slow down, name your values and what you stand for and whatever you're doing, whatever in use with the technology, as long as you're being intentional about it and long as you recognize that if you're refusing and you want to go back, that's fin as long as you understand why.

And if you want to, yes.

Or you.

I'm certainly not going to force anyone to use AI that they don't want to.

And I have, staff and peers that are much less forward leaning and they don't wan to have anything to do with it.

And I totally understand that.

But, like I mentioned, it is a force multiplier.

And I think of like the advent of the firearm, if you're a military, when the firearm is invented and you do not embrace it, you soon become irrelevant.

And I think this, this type o technology is going to be that.

Yeah, yeah.

I keep going back though, because I keep hearing from folks like this who say and anything involved with I can't be trusted.

And if I is in any way involved with elections, I can't trust it.

How do you get the message across that you can trust technology in general?

And I in particular?

You know, a great question, Ted.

It's one that we're grappling with an also the ethical considerations.

Right.

Is it an ethical decision for an election office to use it?

And if they do use it, what responsibility do they have to disclose to the public that they're using.

So these are the things tha we're grappling with right now.

I think the importance is to the extent that, that that election offices want to utilize AI, they need to be transparent.

And they need to have you know this is for example with our, with our tabulation machines.

I mean, we have w 98% of Americans vote on paper.

That' something that makes people feel good, gives them confidence.

So what is i that we can do in the process?

Having an audit trail, fo example, maybe a digital audit trail of how we're using A to give people that confidence.

But again we're not we're not sitting here saying it's time to rush into this, but we also don't want to miss out on opportunities that could improve the proces for for Americans as they vote.

Very good.

Last question here.

For each of you, what would you like to see come out of AI in elections?

And I know doctor less you're more of an AI person than an election person.

But still, what would you like to see regarding that relationship?

I would like to see, resources, materials, tools that, are able to teach how to use AI and integrate with AI and communicate with AI intentionally, purposely.

And so when election officials or when we're thinking about elections are able to identify misinformation or use it in their practices to make, their lives more efficient, their work more efficient, that they have the education and the tools for it.

That's what I want to see is the education piece.

What do you want to see?

Like?

In elections, perfection is demanded.

But we have elections and reality.

So that's not possible.

So this is another tool that can give us a level of check to make sure that we'r detecting any kind of problems before they happen, for example, like ballot proofing.

I think there's great applications there when, electio officials are designing ballots to make sure that there's never been been no mistakes.

But you don't want to replace the humans.

This is an additional control to help check.

Yeah, that makes sense What do you think, Bill?

Yeah.

I mean, we want AI to hel bolster confidence in elections.

And one of the things that has eroded confidence is when we have issues, right?

Whether it's a technological issu or whether it's a timing issue.

Right.

For example, we had in 2024, it took the ballots longer to get mailed out to folk because they were so darn long.

If you remember, it was yes, it was two cards.

And so because of that, we had people calling in saying, where's my ballot?

They were starting to question the election.

Well, we were overwhelmed in the call center.

It was taken 45 minutes to a hour to turn those phone calls.

An AI chat bot can answer a infinite number of phone calls.

The key there is you have to train the AI chat bot with the facts.

All right, well ended on that positive note.

Thank you.

Panelists Bill gates, Michae Moore and Doctor Allison Lester, we appreciate your insights on the impact of emerging technology on our elections process.

That's it for now.

I'm Ted Simons, thank you so much for joining us.