Warner calls on Biden administration to do more to fight election misinformation

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) is pushing the federal government to boost assistance to state and local governments to help them identify and prevent the spread of misinformation and disinformation ahead of the 2024 election.

In a letter to Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly, Warner emphasized the “vital role” state and local election offices play in the broader election process.

“Unfortunately, throughout this election cycle we have witnessed an unprecedented rise in targeted election disinformation campaigns,” Warner wrote in the letter, dated Friday.

The Virginia Democrat pointed to the wave of robocalls targeted at New Hampshire primary voters earlier this year, during which a deepfake of President Biden’s voice was used in a call that encouraged voters to stay home and “save” their votes. A Democratic political consultant was later indicted after he admitted to creating the deepfake to warn about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI).

Warner separately discussed the Intelligence Community’s 2024 Threat Assessment, which covered the “strategic and international attempts by foreign actors” including Russia, China and Iran.

“I strongly urge CISA to increase its provision to assist state and local governments in identifying, responding to, and mitigating the spread of misinformation and disinformation that could impact the administration of elections and voting processes,” Warner wrote.

He urged CISA to increase its collaborative efforts to track election interference efforts and called the agency to facilitate communication between election offices and social media platforms.

“In an election cycle where threats persistently grow but some platforms are dedicating fewer resources towards election integrity and content moderation efforts, this presents an opportune moment to ramp up such collaborations,” Warner wrote.

He emphasized his concerns about AI, arguing it “has supercharged the threats and adjusted the risk calculus.” He recommended CISA should “adjust with this risk” to make sure election offices and the public are provided with the necessary protections against such threats.

“The widespread presence, expanded scope and increased sophistication of AI technologies, including generative AI, has only strengthened deceptive and manipulative information campaigns,” Warner wrote.

“While AI capabilities continue to grow at a rapid pace, state and local governments” IT, public outreach, and cybersecurity teams continue to operate with limited staff and resources, making it extremely difficult for smaller teams to respond to sophisticated AI-backed campaigns targeting elections.”

A spokesperson for CISA confirmed the agency received Warner’s letter but declined to comment further.

Warner has sounded the alarm on domestic and foreign election interference on various occasions, including just last week when he chaired an Intelligence Committee hearing featuring testimony from three major tech leaders on foreign adversaries’ attempts to meddle with the 2024 election.

The concern follows an increase in action from both social media platforms and the government regarding foreign actors.

The Justice Department handed down an indictment this month accusing two RT employees of leading a covert influence campaign by partnering with conservative company Tenet Media to hire various right-wing influencers. The agency also seized more than 30 web domains used by Russia for covert campaigns.

Days later, Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — announced it banned Russian state media from its social media platforms in the wake of the outlets’ “foreign interference activity.”

Warner and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent a letter last week to the leaders of Meta, X Discord, Twitch and Alphabet Inc., to express “persisting concerns” over how election-related disinformation can go viral and reach millions of viewers.

NBC News first reported the letter.