Georgia
Deepfakes and elections: Georgia lawmakers seek to outlaw fake AI-generated messages
Effort to ban deepfakes from elections
Georgia lawmakers want to make it a felony to use deepfakes in political ads or to help sway an election.
ATLANTA – Deep fakes are spreading rapidly everywhere online, on smartphones, and all devices.
One of the latest, most public incidents was a robocall mimicking President Joe Biden’s voice urging voters not to cast their ballots in the New Hampshire primary.
A Georgia lawmaker wants to pull the plug on deepfakes in political campaigns.
“The potential threats are enormous. This could literally sway elections,” said state Sen. John Albers, R-District 56.
What is a deepfake?
“(A deepfake is an) image or video or audio clones of people that have been produced without their consent,” said David Scwheidel, marketing professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.
Albers introduced a bill that would make it a felony to produce deepfakes to interfere with an election. “You cannot, as an outside group, influence an election by using someone’s voice, their likeness, pictures, videos etc. to create a false narrative in the goal of influencing and changing the elections results,” Albers said.
Albers says he wants to prevent bad actors from flooding voters with false information. “I don’t want to see something that’s false unduly impacting our elections,” Albers said.
Georgia state Capitol (FOX 5)
“Generally, a good idea,” said Sarah Hunt-Blackwell, First Amendment Policy Advocate with the ACLU of Georgia.
Could a ban on deepfakes violate the First Amendment?
Hunt-Blackwell says the bill’s current language is inexact and could violate First Amendment rights. “We would like to see the felony charge removed, we would like to see exceptions included for deepfakes that are parodies or satirical. We would like to see exceptions for media outlets,” Hunt-Blackwell said.
Albers called that assessment “inaccurate.” But he says he is fine-tuning his bill to reach a consensus.
Schweidel says rapidly improving artificial intelligence can make it difficult for an audience to know if what they’re seeing, reading or hearing is real or a synthetic copy.
“The advances in ai simply facilitating how easy it is to do this,” Schweidel said. “We’ve seen it in the political arena with robocalls imitating Joe Biden’s voice. With an election coming up, misinformation on steroids.”
Schweidel urges voters to always consider the source of information. “Digging in and figuring out is this legitimate content? If it is coming from an authoritative source. Have they done their fact checking?” Schweidel said.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court has stayed the current deadline to accept absentee ballots, following delays attributed to an equipment failure and a surge in last-minute applications.
The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse that decision through the state’s highest court. While the court has not ruled directly on whether the ballots would be accepted, it did say any late ballot cannot be counted and must be set aside until a further ruling.
“All justices agreed with the order except Chief Justice Boggs and Justices Ellington and Colvin, who dissented, while Presiding Justice Peterson was disqualified from the case,” the ruling read.
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Cobb County scrambles to get absente ballots out
Cobb County election officials received a surge in last-minute absentee ballots which now has them scrambling to get them delivered.
“The Cobb County Board of Elections is aware of and will comply with the Georgia Supreme Court’s order granting a stay,” said Board of Elections and Registration Chairwoman Tori Silas. “However, because the order only addressed to the motion for a stay, we will anticipate the Supreme Court’s final ruling to see whether it ultimately allow these voters additional time to return their ballots or whether we must only count those received by the close of polls on Tuesday.”
The Cobb County Elections Department announced that approximately 3,200 absentee ballot applications were processed late due to a spike in requests before last Friday’s deadline and technical problems. The department sends these ballots via next-day mail or delivery, including prepaid express return envelopes.
Cobb County Superior Court Senior Judge Robert Flournoy approved an order on Thursday, supported by four members of the Board of Elections and Registration and proposed by attorneys representing three voters affected by the issue.
Under Judge Flournoy’s order, absentee ballots mailed after Oct. 30 will be counted if they are received by 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 8, and postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 5. The ruling is intended to protect the voting rights of those impacted by the delays.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that any ballot received by 7 p.m. on Election Day can be counted, but any ballots received after the deadline through 5 p.m. on Nov. 8, must be kept separately and securely, but not destroyed, until further notice from the court. Those late ballots would not immediately be counted.
The Supreme Court’s order also directs affected voters to be informed of the deadline for returning their absentee ballots through email, text messages, and a public announcement on the Cobb County Board of Elections’ website. This order applies only to the specific group of “Affected Voters” identified in a trial court order from Nov. 1 and does not affect voters covered by federal laws for uniformed and overseas voters.
Cobb County election officials say voters who requested an absentee ballot but are concerned it will not arrive on time can still vote in person at their assigned precinct on Tuesday. To find their precinct, voters can visit the state’s My Voter Page.
Top Dawgs in the NFL (Week 9)
Continuing a series that debuted last season, UGASports highlights the top NFL performances by former Georgia players for the week entering the Monday night game. With our most outstanding performer for the week—or the Top Dawg—revealed towards the end, we spotlight the top NFL performances by Bulldogs for October 31 through November 3 and preview those participating in tonight’s Monday night game.
Ladd McConkey
A week after a 100-yard receiving performance, McConkey continued his sensational rookie campaign in the Los Angeles Chargers’ 27-10 win yesterday over the Cleveland Browns. Starting at wide receiver and seeing 48 of 57 offensive snaps, he totaled a team-high five receptions for 64 yards with a long of 20. Through eight games this season, McConkey leads the 5-3 Chargers with 35 catches for 440 yards and four touchdowns.
Travon Walker
Although resulting in a 28-23 loss on the road at Philadelphia, Jacksonville’s Walker had one of the top single-game defensive performances in the last few weeks by a former Georgia player. The third-year defensive end totaled seven tackles (six solo), including two for loss, and returned a fumble 35 yards for a touchdown to pull the Jaguars to within a touchdown late in the third quarter. Breaking multiple tackles on his way to the end zone, Walker’s fumble return was a thing of beauty and was his first touchdown since he played at Upson-Lee High School.
Nakobe Dean
With Jacksonville trailing Philadelphia, 28-23, with 1:37 remaining, Dean went up high and made a tremendous, game-sealing interception of the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence. For Dean, it was the first interception of his NFL career—and his first pick since the one he returned for a 50-yard touchdown against Florida three years before in Jacksonville. Although he totaled only two tackles against the Jaguars (Dean entered averaging more than eight tackles per game), he defended on a game-high two opposing passes, including the game-clinching pick. Also for the Eagles, defensive tackle Jalen Carter totaled four tackles, defensive tackle Jordan Davis made two tackles, linebacker Nolan Smith had one stop, and cornerback Kelee Ringo had a tackle and fumble recovery on special teams.
The TOP DAWG: Matthew Stafford
A week after having his highest-rated passing game in nearly two years, Stafford earned the Top Dawg recognition for his performance yesterday in the Los Angeles Rams’ 26-20 overtime win over the Seattle Seahawks. The 16-year veteran completed 25 of 44 passes for 298 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. Stafford’s second touchdown pass was a 39-yard dime dropped to Demarcus Robinson in overtime to win the game. It marked the former Georgia quarterback’s 46th career game-winning drive in the NFL, ranking sixth all-time in league history.
For some notable group efforts, linebacker Quay Walker had a game-high 12 tackles in Green Bay’s 24-14 loss to Detroit. Also contributing to the Packers defense was safety Javon Bullard (four tackles), cornerback Eric Stokes (three tackles), and tackle Devonte Wyatt (two tackles).
Although resulting in a 41-24 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, a trio of former Georgia players stood out for the Las Vegas Raiders. Tight end Brock Bowers continued his historic rookie season with five receptions, including a 22-yard touchdown for the second score of his pro career. Also, running back Zamir White rushed for a touchdown for the game’s first score, and 12-year defensive tackle John Jenkins registered a half-sack.
Kicking off at 8:15 pm ET, the lone Monday night game tonight pits the 4-4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the 7-0 Kansas City Chiefs, where the home team is a 9-point favorite. The Bucs have one former Georgia player on their active roster: rookie Tykee Smith, a No. 2 safety. The Chiefs feature two: Malik Herring, a No. 2 defensive end, and Mecole Hardman, a No. 2 wide receiver (also first-team kickoff return and second-team punt return).
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – New lawsuits have been filed by the Trump campaign challenging Georgia’s election.
The 21-page lawsuit filed in Savannah argues county offices in the state were “illegally” open over the weekend.
The federal and state lawsuits are the latest move from Republicans contesting Georgia’s election procedures.
“The Republican national committee and team Trump, we filed ligation,” said Trump Campaign Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Leavitt addressed the filings at an event in Atlanta Saturday.
“We learned that in four counties including Fulton County Democrat election officials were – one trying to process ballots after the deadline last night and two – trying to open additional drop boxes that were not predetermined prior,” she said.
The Republican National Committee filed a similar lawsuit in Fulton County, where it was struck down by a judge. The judge said absentee ballots can be collected until polls close on election day.
Georgia judge rejects GOP lawsuit trying to block counties from accepting hand-returned mail ballots
County offices across the state were open Saturday and Sunday. However, the court restricted the option for drop boxes.
Gabriel Sterling, Chief Operating Officer for the Georgia Secretary of State, responded claims on Twitter saying, “To be clear, no election laws were broken in Georgia today. The law clearly states that govt buildings can be used to receive absentee ballots. A judge said so this morning. Monitors, observers, & SOS investigators were all in Fulton locations. 104 ballots dropped off there.”
The Trump campaign says they continue to fight the re-opening of the centers at federal and state level.
“We want everyone in Georgia to remain diligent,” said Leavitt.
The Sectary of State’s Office is expected to address the pending lawsuits at a press conference set for Monday morning.
Copyright 2024 WANF. All rights reserved.
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