During a mock exercise simulating the events of an Election Day in New York, experts gathered to confront the grim realities of spreading falsehoods through advanced technology. 

Former U.S. officials, civil society leaders, and tech executives put their heads together to envision the impacts of “deepfake” technology on the 2024 election—with unsettling findings.

It wasn’t pretty.

Participants across various sectors rehearsed scenarios in which fictitious emergencies—like closed polls in Arizona due to militia threats and ballot dumping in Miami—were propagated through deepfake videos and calls. Although identified as artificial intelligence forgeries, these deepfakes set off a wildfire of dissemination before being debunked.

“It was jarring for folks in the room to see how quickly just a handful of these types of threats could spiral out of control and really dominate the election cycle,” said Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official who helped organize the exercise for the Washington-based nonprofit The Future US, according to NBC News. 

Mr. Taylor authored an anonymous New York Times op-ed about resistance in the Trump administration and subsequently resigned his post in 2019.

The simulation not only underscored the perils from international agents but also unveiled the domestic challenges at play. Participants discussed the acute polarization in U.S. society and the potential for disinformation to exploit and amplify these divisions during elections.

Questions loomed large over federal and local readiness in combating disinformation strategies designed to sabotage election integrity. Off the record, U.S. officials voiced similar concerns, apprehensive about some election agencies’ capability to manage an adequate response, the report stated.

Unlike a natural disaster, in which government agencies work through a central command, America’s decentralized electoral system is entering uncharted territory without a clear sense of who’s in charge. 

“Now, in the last few years, we in America are having to defend assaults on our elections from both domestic and foreign forces,” said Nick Penniman, CEO of Issue One, a bipartisan organization promoting political reform and election integrity. “We just don’t have the infrastructure or the history to do it at scale because we’ve never had to face threats this severe in the past.”

“We know a hurricane is eventually going to hit our elections,” he said.

• Staff can be reached at 202-636-3000.