The November midterm elections will be the first national election in which generative artificial intelligence is cheap, convincing, and carried in everyone’s pocket. The concerns being discussed are not hypothetical.

The Los Angeles County’s registrar has reported that AI was used during California’s June primary to manipulate publicly available footage of ballot counting to gin up fraud claims, and researchers warn that fabricated audio and video are far more persuasive than a bare assertion. Election officials now worry less about a fake candidate ad than about fake evidence, manufactured proof for whatever conspiracy theory is trending on election night.