While speaking on stage in Phoenix earlier this month, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes was asked what keeps him up at night. It’s a question he frequently faces, joking that it’s “the central block on the bingo card” of conversations about the next U.S. election.

But his answer was serious.

But his answer was serious.

“What keeps me up at night is that we still have elected officials and candidates in this country who are dissatisfied or because they think they can get something. Deliberate lies for the political benefit of the species,” Fontes told the audience. Arizona State University McCain Institute (ASU). “Most of this harmful information originates outside the United States, but is amplified by domestic actors.”

Fontes even has a shorthand list of the main sources of that disinformation. “I call Russia, Iran and China rich,” he said in an interview. foreign policy. “Those people have a vested interest in Americans being pitted against each other.”

U.S. intelligence and cyber defense officials say all three of Washington’s major adversaries are working in parallel to disrupt the November presidential election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. I’ve said it repeatedly. last friday, be joint statement The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the FBI accused Russia of fakery. social media video Poll workers in Pennsylvania were shown on video destroying mail-in ballots.

Microsoft also expressed a similar opinion. caveat Recent reports revealed influence efforts by Iran and Russia targeting the Trump and Harris campaigns, respectively. It also turns out that China is placing more emphasis on down-ballot candidates and parliamentary elections. new york times reported Chinese hackers also accessed data on cell phones used by Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

ODNI warned It was announced last week that election interference is unlikely to stop before the Nov. 5 voting deadline, as Russia and Iran seek to sow chaos and even incite violence in the days after the vote.

Given what they went through in 2020, it is also this difficult post-election period that Fontes and his colleagues are most concerned about. Arizona is primary target election denier Linked to.stop stealing“Movement”accused election officials in the state and Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, of voter fraud after Joe Biden won the state. Lawsuits, misinformation, and even threats of violence followed, but ultimately the Republican Party funded it. review There were no additional votes for Trump in Maricopa County’s election results. In fact, the opposite was true: Biden gained 99 votes and Trump lost 261 votes.

Throughout it all, our staff remained steadfast, sometimes at great personal sacrifice. Just ask Bill Gates.

No, it’s not that Bill Gates. As the supervisor of Maricopa County, the fourth largest county in the United States with a population of more than 4.5 million people, Gates is one of the officials who bore the brunt of misinformation and subsequent harassment in the wake of the last presidential election. It was. His family has received death threats and he out loud As a result, he talked about his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This will be his last election before he retires and joins ASU to help run the university’s new Democratic Dynamics Laboratory.

Gates said he and his colleagues aren’t actively thinking about where the misinformation they’re seeing is coming from. “It seems like it’s almost all coming from within the United States, and this is the first time we’re being reminded by these news stories that there is interference from a foreign country,” he said.. “I think that’s when we start thinking about it, but it’s very well hidden.”

Gates and Fontes expressed cautious confidence in the preparations. They’ve spent four years preparing for any eventuality, but the 2022 midterm elections have provided further experience and lessons.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates speaks about voting machine malfunctions at MCTEC in Phoenix, November 8, 2022John Moore/Getty Images

“I think attacks on our election systems are becoming more sophisticated, both technologically and in terms of the legal attacks that we expect to mount after the election. , triple-checked, we are confident that we have planned the scenario and executed how it would work,” Fontes said. Fontes was Maricopa County Recorder in the 2020 election and was elected to the current position in the 2022 midterm elections. “Our defense is definitely much stronger than it was in 2022 or 2020.”

These defenses begin in the physical realm, currently using the Maricopa Counting and Elections Center. protected Iron gates, fences, shatterproof glass, armed guards and badge access are required. But they are also increasingly focused on digital. After becoming Arizona Secretary of State, Mr. Fontes michael moore As the office’s first full-time Chief Information Security Officer. Moore previously held a similar role at Maricopa. Moore’s team is powered by partnerships with the National Guard and an interagency organization called the Arizona Counterterrorism Information Center.

“There’s always the possibility that someone could break through the wall, but we’ve built the wall pretty well and we’re feeling pretty good,” Fontes said.

A view of MCTEC in Phoenix on October 23rd.Olivier Toulon/AFP via Getty Images

Fontes also took steps to address the relatively new threat posed by artificial intelligence. In June he setting of AI and Election Security Advisory Board. It is made up of more than a dozen academics, experts, and representatives from Microsoft and OpenAI. He also organizes training sessions and tabletop exercises for election and law enforcement officials, which he described as “Dungeons & Dragons for election geeks.”

Many of these exercises used deepfake audio and video of state officials, including Mr. Fontes himself, to prepare election officials for what they would see. One of the videos shown before he took the stage in Phoenix showed him speaking French and German, languages ​​he does not speak. “There’s been a lot of deepfakes made recently about me, but I’m actually here,” Fontes said.

Although Gates oversees a relatively small area, he undoubtedly faces a bright spotlight. “We receive literally billions of attacks on Maricopa County’s cyber infrastructure every quarter,” he said, adding that the county regularly works with federal agencies such as CISA and the FBI. “We know each other now, but we don’t [that] If you have any problems, introduce yourself. ”

Many of the scenarios his team is preparing for are now known unknowns, rather than unknowns that may have previously been unknowns. “While we had a safe and secure election in 2020, we were totally unprepared for what followed and the disinformation we had to deal with in real time on top of physical threats. ,” Gates said. Even AI “isn’t really all that unique, it’s just another form of misinformation about steroids.”

Both officials are also optimistic about improving public awareness and information, and hope that increased awareness and conversation about election misinformation at home and abroad will ease its impact in the coming weeks and beyond. . “Honestly, I think people are getting tired of that stuff, generally speaking,” Fontes said.. “I think you all understand that the bulk of the evidence leans toward the veracity of our system, the legitimacy of our system, and we continue to welcome questions.”