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California Launches New Effort To Fight Election Disinformation

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla is launching the first statewide effort to combat election-related disinformation.
Justin Sullivan Getty Images
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla is launching the first statewide effort to combat election-related disinformation.
California Launches New Effort To Fight Election Disinformation
California Launches New Effort To Fight Election Disinformation
California Launches New Effort To Fight Election Disinformation GUEST: Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State

This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavanagh. Our top story on Midday edition avoid the line just text or tweet to end your vote from home. That was the message in a couple of widely circulated social media posts on Election Day 2016. Of course you can't text or tweet in your vote and the posts are believed to have been part of the Russian cyber attack against our election. Now California has what it hopes is a defense against that in its newly created office of election cyber security. Joining me is California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. Secretary Padilla welcome to the program. Humouring thank you for having me. This office is set up to combat disinformation about the election. What kinds of false information will you be looking for. Well there is having learned from the 2016 election cycle different ways to either compromise or raise concern about the integrity of our elections. So we're working hard to shore up our actual elections infrastructure. You know when and how we vote how ballots are tabulated and results reported the voter registration process et cetera. But one of the big impacts of foreign interference in 2016 was a lot of the disinformation that was shared and widely amplified bad information that's harmful for voters trying to exercise their right to vote. And so what this office will allow us to do it increases our capacity to monitor those sorts of disinformation campaigns not only on but especially on various social media platforms. We're hoping to increase our ability to monitor to detect some of the misinformation counterfeit or correct it to the extent that we can quickly and in egregious cases work as appropriate with social media companies to even take down that bad information. What about false campaign claims or conspiracy theories things like that things that are that are disseminated but don't have anything specifically to do with how voters can sign up to vote or cast their ballots. Right and there's an important distinction to understand here we're not talking about being a censorship of the campaign. Police are not going to weigh in on candidates claims or you know campaign platforms or those sorts of things. We're talking specifically about the accurate information. Voters need to be able to participate in our democracy rules and information about voter registration deadlines et cetera rules that voters need about when where and how to cast their ballots. You know it's unfortunate that some of these disinformation campaigns are not new for many many years. We've heard of whisper campaigns encouraging some voters to vote on the wrong election date or spreading bad information about polling places or even you know one of the common myths in California is that provisional ballots may not be counted when provisional ballots are absolutely processed by hand. And the vast majority of them are approved and added to the vote tally. The problem with this information and modern technology is that the wrong information is able to spread much more widely. Much more quickly than in the past in our defense against that has to keep up. You say that you will be working closely with social media companies when this type of disinformation comes up on those platforms. How are you going to be doing that. How would that work. Well for starters. We've established individual points of contact with companies such as Google and Facebook and Twitter and others so as we are able to identify this wrong information or more conservative campaigns we can quickly work through work with them and through the process to address it as appropriate. Well the office also addressed cyberspace threats to the state's voting system. The infrastructure that you were talking about. Absolutely. And so again this is increased capacity to address election security very comprehensively. We've been working for years now to shore up our infrastructure. You know from a server standpoint from a technology standpoint even the voting systems throughout the state I think the general public should be reminded of that. In California we prohibit the voting equipment from being connected to the Internet period. So it make it impossible to systematically hack or rig an election. And there is of course after every election a post election audits of the paper ballots to ensure the accuracy and the integrity of the results. So all told Catterick this information. We're trying to minimize the chances of anything going wrong with our elections paper ballots are the ultimate safeguard and backup but we also have state of the art firewalls you know 24/7 monitoring of our elections infrastructure and improved communication between federal authorities other state departments and agencies and local elections offices to be able to identify any cyber threats or defend against them. I want to go back to the concerns that have been raised about this office of election cyber security. Those who did not support the bill that created the office believe it could be a slippery slope where the state government gets increasingly involved in censoring election ads or political claims. Are there safeguards in place to stop that from happening. Look if we need to further clarify this bill in the future legislature I'm happy to do that. But the public should rest assured that resources we're putting in place for this November's election is strictly to protect the integrity and accuracy of the information for voters deserve to have for when where and how to participate in the November election of course we'll be here before we know it is the Office of Cyber Security up and running right now. So the offices has been approved the office has been funded job postings have been posted and interviews are happening so we're staffing up as quickly as we possibly can. Now recently we learned that 23000 Californians were registered with the wrong party affiliation language preference or other error through the DMV. New motor voter registration process. You've been quoted as being disappointed and frustrated by the errors. Do we know what went wrong and how is it being corrected. We've requested additional detailed information from the Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Department of Technology both on what exactly happened. Further assurances on how it will not happen again in the future but in the meantime for impacted voters we have sent direct notifications on. Number one how to vote or verify your registration status. And that's a good tool for all voters to have. You can go to voter status S.O.S. See that GOP and verify that all your voter registration information is up to date your address information your political party preference even your vote by mail preference etc. And if there's any update that you need to make on your record you can go to register to vote. That S.A.G. Ovie not just to register for the first time but to update your record at any point. It's good practice to have you know 2 3 4 weeks before every election. So we know that you're on the rolls and everything's in order for you to be able to cast your ballot. I've been speaking with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. Secretary Pudi thank you so much. Thank you. Don't forget to vote. You're listening to KPBS midday edition.

California election officials are launching a new effort to fight the kind of disinformation campaigns that plagued the 2016 elections — an effort that comes with thorny legal and political questions.

The state's new Office of Elections Cybersecurity will focus on combating social media campaigns that try to confuse voters or discourage them from casting ballots.

During the 2016 election, in addition to hacking email accounts and attacking voting systems, Russian agents used social media to plant disinformation intended to drive down voter turnout.

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"People deserve to have confidence in our elections systems, and countering wrong information has become an important part of that," says Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat who hopes to get the effort started before the November election.

One widely circulated post in 2016 was an image of actor Aziz Ansari holding a Photoshopped sign urging Hillary Clinton supporters to save time by tweeting their votes from home. Another was an official-looking Clinton campaign graphic that urges supporters to "Vote from home" and to "Text 'Hillary' to 59925 and we'll make history together." It even included a "Paid for by Hillary for President 2016" disclaimer at the bottom.

Other examples from 2016 included posts that directed voters to the wrong polling place or claimed the election was taking place on a different day.

"This obviously wasn't true, and it violated voter suppression laws," says Bret Schafer with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, who tracks Russian influence operations on social media.

One of the most frequent falsehoods planted in communities is that voters should not accept provisional ballots because they won't be counted, says Padilla. In fact, more than 90 percent of provisional ballots are ultimately counted.

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The new office, Padilla says, "allows us to be able to identify campaigns along those lines more quickly, correct information, and — as appropriate — work with social media platforms and others to bring some of that information down."

Under a recently passed law, the office will "monitor and counteract false or misleading information" that could "suppress voter participation or cause confusion and disruption of the orderly and secure administration of elections."

Social media companies, including Twitter and Facebook, are working with Padilla's office to create a process for reporting and removing disinformation.

California is believed to be the first state to target disinformation this way. Schafer says it's an important step, but he warns the scope of this new office must be limited.

"You don't want a secretary of state or any, really, government official being in a position for them to say, 'This specific narrative about a candidate is disinformation, and it should be taken down,' " he says. "That very quickly is gonna be a slippery slope, and it's gonna become political and problematic on many levels."

When the California Legislature voted to create the new office last month, Republicans like Assemblyman Matthew Harper voted no. He argued a partisan elected official could seek to remove claims made by or against campaigns or candidates.

"We should not give the secretary of state the authority to decide subjectively what is false or misleading information the election," Harper said during the floor debate. "If indeed this was about making sure to avoid situations in which someone was giving wrong information about when to vote, how to vote, etc., then it should have been specifically and narrowly tailored to that."

The law is silent on the issues of how the office will handle false campaign claims and conspiracy theories, but Padilla insists they'll be off-limits. Asked to categorically say that his office will not seek to decide whether a campaign claim is true or false, he replied: "Correct, correct."

"I know in some quarters, there's some concern that we're going to get into the censorship business, which is not true," he said. "We support the First Amendment and freedom of speech. But it's also incumbent upon us to ensure that voters have correct, accurate information about voter registration and about being able to participate in the elections."

For their part, the social media companies insist they are targeting disinformation about the voting process — not campaign claims.

Facebook spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine Barr says partnerships with states, "including our ongoing work with Secretary Padilla, are a critical piece of our efforts to help prevent elections interference and the spread of false information on Facebook as well as encourage voter registration and participation in the upcoming elections."

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