‘The center of the storm’: Arizona’s election chief prepares for a disinformation battle
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes speaks after voting on the first day of early in-person voting Oct. 9 at Surprise City Hall in Arizona. He talks with POLITICO TECH on what the state has done to prepare for the November 2024 elections. POLITICO illustration/Photo by the Associated Press
POLITICO
Arizona was the epicenter for bogus claims about voter fraud and stolen elections four years ago. And with the 2024 election nearly two weeks away, the state’s top election administrator is bracing for another disinformation battle.
“There’s no way to avoid the repeat,” Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told the POLITICO Tech podcast. “We are the center of the storm when it comes to election denialism.”
Fontes’ office has been preparing for over a year to confront election threats this cycle by fortifying systems against cyber attacks, monitoring social media disinformation and training to spot AI-generated deepfakes, he said.
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