ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Election officials across the country have spent years fighting false claims and conspiracy theories about stolen elections. They're now worried that new artificial intelligence technologies could make the problem worse. Colorado Public Radios Bente Birkeland looked into how election officials are trying to prepare.
BENTE BIRKELAND, BYLINE: Imagine it's noon on Election Day. There's a video of Colorado's secretary of state circulating. She says, the state's polls will stay open until 10 p.m. - three hours later than normal - but it's a fake. This was a scenario Colorado election officials ran through at a training last month in Grand Junction.
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HILARY RUDY: When you were talking through this, did you find that maybe your plan doesn't address everything? I walked by a few tables, and I heard, oh, I don't think we had that. Yeah. What do we do about that?
BIRKELAND: They were there to learn how to better spot fakes made with AI and how to respond. Susan Corliss is a clerk from rural Kit Carson County in eastern Colorado.
SUSAN CORLISS: Technology is advancing so fast that I do believe that all of this has to be on the radar.
BIRKELAND: Another scenario featured a fake robo-call telling voters there was a shooting at a polling place. Hilary Rudy is with the Colorado Secretary of State's office and led the training.
RUDY: What we've seen is some really convincing stuff, and we started to become concerned. Like, OK, if we see this in our everyday life, how quickly then do we start to see it in our elections, and how quickly does it start to affect what people know to be true about elections?
BIRKELAND: The goal is for election workers to rapidly find out what's true and accurate, respond, and let the public know what's happening. Rudy says, the media environment makes it harder.
RUDY: I was hearing from a county who said my last remaining newspaper is closing its doors. And what does that mean? When we talk about, you know, getting information to the media and having the media help us push it out - if, you know, you live in one rural community and the only local paper publishing is three communities away and your voters aren't getting that, that creates a big challenge.
BIRKELAND: Weld County clerk Carly Koppes, who's a Republican, says she's tried to be proactive about her likeness and voice being faked. She's talked to her county attorney, sheriff and IT staff about it.
CARLY KOPPES: I've done so many different types of interviews, and I've put out a lot of educational videos that it would probably be pretty easy for somebody to do an AI fake around me.
BIRKELAND: Koppes said, until recently, AI wasn't even part of the conversation.
KOPPES: What we were talking about four years ago going into that 2020 presidential was more how is social media going to play into it, where now it's not just social media, but it is the AI factor.
BIRKELAND: But Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, says he doesn't want to lose sight of the fact that AI has some useful applications.
MATT CRANE: So it's don't go overboard worrying about, you know, catastrophic things that can happen. We have to have a reasoned approach. But be prepared if somebody does try to use it in a nefarious way.
BIRKELAND: Other states, including Arizona and Minnesota, have held similar trainings. It's just one of the latest ways those running elections will have to try and counter lingering distrust in the election system.
For NPR News, I'm Bente Birkeland in Grand Junction.
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