Portland, Oregon (light seal) – Amid the rise of artificial intelligence, an Oregon senator is working to limit bad actors from using the technology to influence U.S. elections.
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) recently reintroduced legislation to protect voters from misinformation spread by AI.
of Fraudulent Artificial Intelligence Regulation (FAIR) Election Law The law has several provisions, including a ban on false election-related content created using AI that aims to suppress voters and target election officials.
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The senators’ latest bill also prohibits the federal government from using tools that could be used for voter suppression and allows voters to challenge the wrongful removal of their names from voter rolls.
“The ballot box is the heart of our democracy, and we must use every tool at our disposal to protect it,” Merkley said. “In the face of bad actors abusing AI to spread disinformation about voting and engage in even more dangerous voter suppression efforts, fair election law will help counter this 21st century threat and counter the Trump administration’s anti-democratic efforts to target voters it doesn’t like. I am fighting to protect the right of every voter to be heard. ”
“The strength of our democracy depends on whether our elections are safe, secure, and accessible. As the use of AI rapidly expands, we must ensure guardrails are in place to prevent it from becoming a tool to suppress votes, spread disinformation, or remove voters from rolls,” Padilla added. “The Fair Elections Act is an important step toward protecting elections and ensuring voters are not targeted by bad actors who use AI to interfere with their right to vote.”
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The senators noted that the threat AI poses to U.S. elections is “no longer theoretical.”
Merkley and Padilla pointed to Project EagleAI and other digital tools used to challenge mass voters.
analysis from brennan justice center A bipartisan policy group called EagleAI NETwork has been launched by some of America’s leading election deniers.
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According to the Brennan Center, EagleAI pulls data from sources such as the national change of address database, criminal justice records, and tax property data to create a vast list of voters.
The AI then highlights the names of potentially ineligible voters using criteria that are “unreliable at best and irrelevant at worst,” the Brennan Center said.
This includes “matching names on voter lists to change of address forms, felony convictions, and even just nursing home registrations (baselessly implying that nursing home residents are somehow incapable of voting),” the Brennan Center explains.
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EagleAI will then be used to automatically create appeal forms to remove voters deemed ineligible from state voter rolls, the Brennan Center said.
To counter this threat of AI abuse in U.S. elections, the FAIR Elections Act includes several provisions. This includes prohibiting the distribution of false AI-generated election content that is intended to impede the right of others to vote. This content may include the dissemination of false information regarding the time, place, manner, or eligibility to vote in federal elections.
The bill would also amend the National Voter Registration Act to prohibit the removal of a voter from the voter rolls unless the voter is determined to be ineligible to vote.
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The bill also adds protections for election workers by prohibiting the targeting or harassment of election workers with AI-generated false depictions of election workers or employees or deepfakes.
The bill would allow voters to sue the federal government if they were wrongly removed from a state’s voter rolls, stopped from voting, or stopped from voting because the federal government controlled their information through a federal database.
This comes as the Trump administration is demanding states turn over voter data and suing several states. Including Oregonfor confidential information.
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The bill also requires the bipartisan Government Accountability Office to investigate the effects of the use of federal databases, including whether the federal government is suppressing voting rights by unfairly removing eligible voters from voter rolls.
The FAIR Elections Act is co-sponsored by Sen. Maisie Hirono (D-HI), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT).
Your invoice will arrive as follows Associated Press AI is “growing the threat of election disinformation around the world, making it easier for anyone with a smartphone and a devious imagination to create false but convincing content aimed at deceiving voters.”
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The Associated Press points out: Former FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of growing threats in 2024, saying AI would make it easier for “foreign adversaries to engage in malign influence.”
The Associated Press added, “AI deepfakes can taint or soften a candidate’s image. Voters can be steered toward a candidate, away from a candidate, or even avoid voting altogether. But perhaps the greatest threat to democracy, experts say, is that the proliferation of AI deepfakes could undermine public trust in what they see and hear.”
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