Latest news with #electionIntegrity
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Red state AG investigating more than 30 potential noncitizens who voted in 2024 election
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into 33 potential noncitizens allegedly illegally voting in the 2024 general election. Paxton, a Republican who is running a Senate primary challenge against Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced the investigation on Tuesday. In a press statement, Paxton's office said it was made aware of the potential illegal votes by Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson. The statement said Nelson was only able to access the information because of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump this March. Trump's executive order, titled "Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections," directed the Departments of State and Homeland Security to give all states "access to appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered." The order also directed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to provide U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi with "complete information on all foreign nationals who have indicated on any immigration form that they have registered or voted in a Federal, State, or local election, and shall also take all appropriate action to submit to relevant State or local election officials such information." Part of this order involved the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's SAVE database being opened up to the states at no cost, through which Nelson was able to access the information about the alleged illegal voting, according to Paxton's statement. Trump said in the order that "free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic" and "the right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election." In August 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that the state had removed 1.1 million people from its voter rolls, including individuals who had moved out-of-state, were deceased or who were non-citizens. A statement by the governor's office said that over 6,500 of the individuals removed from the state's voter rolls were potential noncitizens. The statement said that approximately 1,930 of the removed noncitizens had a voter history. Later reporting by the Texas Tribune alleged that the governor's office had inflated the numbers of noncitizen voters. The governor's office, however, has said that the removal process "has been, and will continue to be, ongoing." In his Tuesday statement announcing the investigation into the 33 potential noncitizens voting, Paxton said that "these potential instances of unlawful voting will be thoroughly investigated, and I will continue to stand with President Trump in fighting to ensure that our state's elections are safe and secure." "In order to be able to trust the integrity of our elections, the results must be determined by our own citizens—not foreign nationals breaking the law to illegally vote," said Paxton, adding that "noncitizens must not be allowed to influence American elections, and I will use the full weight of my office to investigate all voter fraud."
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Paxton to Launch Major Probe Into Non-Citizen Voters
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating 33 potential noncitizen voters, The Dallas Express has learned. Thirty-three individuals are suspected of having voted in November's general election despite not being U.S. citizens. The case was referred to Paxton after the Secretary of State's Office flagged the registrations through federal data sources. Texas recently gained access to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' SAVE database, which helps verify immigration status and naturalized or acquired U.S. citizenship. The system, operated under the Department of Homeland Security, is used by agencies across the country to validate immigration information. The development follows a March executive order signed by President Donald Trump that directed DHS to share database information with states. The order was designed to help ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, which require accurate and current statewide voter lists. Separately, Paxton announced in May that multiple individuals were indicted in Frio County for alleged illegal vote harvesting. Those arrested included a county judge, a former elections administrator, Pearsall city council members, a Pearsall ISD trustee, and a suspected 'Frio County vote harvester.' The charges came after what officials described as a multi-year investigation into credible allegations of election misconduct. In October, Paxton investigated nonprofit groups allegedly registering voters outside Texas Department of Public Safety driver license offices — a practice that may have violated state law. Officials say the effort was uncovered through undercover operations in major metro areas. Gov. Greg Abbott announced that month officials had removed 1.1 million ineligible voters from the rolls since 2021, as The Dallas Express reported at the time. Paxton has repeatedly voiced concern about noncitizens casting ballots in U.S. elections, saying only American citizens should determine the outcome. He has pledged to continue investigating and prosecuting election violations.
Fox News
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Don Lemon, Kathy Griffin agree 'something was off' about 2024 election, suggest election tampering
Former CNN host Don Lemon agreed with comedian Kathy Griffin on his show Tuesday that "something was off" with the 2024 election and that it might have been rigged by Republicans. At the end of "The Don Lemon Show" episode, Griffin brought up the idea as her "tin foil hat moment," acknowledging that she may upset a few "lefties" over the idea. "I'm Kathy Griffin and I do not think Trump won in a free and fair election," Griffin said. "I believe there was tampering. I don't know. I don't know if it was the Elon [Musk] connection. I don't know if it was just a few good old boys in the South who didn't do, you know, I mean what they accuse us of." KATHY GRIFFIN ACCUSES STEPHEN COLBERT OF 'BULLS-- AMBUSH' OVER INFAMOUS TRUMP SEVERED HEAD PHOTO Griffin insisted that her gut was telling her something happened with the election. While Lemon did not himself say the 2024 election won by President Donald Trump was rigged, he admitted that he didn't disagree with Griffin. "You're not far off," Lemon said. "I mean I won't say that I disagree with you… But I'm an evidence person. I'd like to see the evidence. I think something was off, and especially when someone said, 'oh, we've got this.' And, you know, how do you know that? How do we know we've got this? How do you know, or 'I don't need your vote' or anything like that. It's a little bit odd." "Right. 'This will be the last election. We won't have any elections after this,'" Griffin said. "'Vote for me, and you won't have to vote again anymore.' And also, you know, as you said, every accusation is a confession," Lemon said. CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE Griffin has faced backlash since 2017 over her infamous "beheaded Trump" photo – which showed her holding a fake severed, bloodied head made to resemble Trump – and eventually faced a Secret Service investigation for conspiracy to murder the then-president. Griffin's claim resembled one made by actress Rosie O'Donnell in March when she questioned the validity of Trump's win because of his relationship with Elon Musk. "I question why the first time in American history a president has won every swing state and is also best friends and his largest donor was a man who owns and runs the Internet," O'Donnell said. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
AI can be more persuasive than humans in debates, scientists find
Artificial intelligence can do just as well as humans, if not better, when it comes to persuading others in a debate, and not just because it cannot shout, a study has found. Experts say the results are concerning, not least as it has potential implications for election integrity. 'If persuasive AI can be deployed at scale, you can imagine armies of bots microtargeting undecided voters, subtly nudging them with tailored political narratives that feel authentic,' said Francesco Salvi, the first author of the research from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He added that such influence was hard to trace, even harder to regulate and nearly impossible to debunk in real time. 'I would be surprised if malicious actors hadn't already started to use these tools to their advantage to spread misinformation and unfair propaganda,' Salvi said. But he noted there were also potential benefits from persuasive AI, from reducing conspiracy beliefs and political polarisation to helping people adopt healthier lifestyles. Writing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Salvi and colleagues reported how they carried out online experiments in which they matched 300 participants with 300 human opponents, while a further 300 participants were matched with Chat GPT-4 – a type of AI known as a large language model (LLM). Each pair was assigned a proposition to debate. These ranged in controversy from 'should students have to wear school uniforms'?' to 'should abortion be legal?' Each participant was randomly assigned a position to argue. Both before and after the debate participants rated how much they agreed with the proposition. In half of the pairs, opponents – whether human or machine – were given extra information about the other participant such as their age, gender, ethnicity and political affiliation. The results from 600 debates revealed Chat GPT-4 performed similarly to human opponents when it came to persuading others of their argument – at least when personal information was not provided. However, access to such information made AI – but not humans – more persuasive: where the two types of opponent were not equally persuasive, AI shifted participants' views to a greater degree than a human opponent 64% of the time. Digging deeper, the team found persuasiveness of AI was only clear in the case of topics that did not elicit strong views. The researchers added that the human participants correctly guessed their opponent's identity in about three out of four cases when paired with AI. They also found that AI used a more analytical and structured style than human participants, while not everyone would be arguing the viewpoint they agree with. But the team cautioned that these factors did not explain the persuasiveness of AI. Instead, the effect seemed to come from AI's ability to adapt its arguments to individuals. 'It's like debating someone who doesn't just make good points: they make your kind of good points by knowing exactly how to push your buttons,' said Salvi, noting the strength of the effect could be even greater if more detailed personal information was available – such as that inferred from someone's social media activity. Prof Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the work, said the research reopened 'the discussion of potential mass manipulation of public opinion using personalised LLM conversations'. He noted some research – including his own – had suggested the persuasiveness of LLMs was down to their use of analytical reasoning and evidence, while one study did not find personal information increased Chat-GPT's persuasiveness. Prof Michael Wooldridge, an AI researcher at the University of Oxford, said while there could be positive applications of such systems – for example, as a health chatbot – there were many more disturbing ones, includingradicalisation of teenagers by terrorist groups, with such applications already possible. 'As AI develops we're going to see an ever larger range of possible abuses of the technology,' he added. 'Lawmakers and regulators need to be pro-active to ensure they stay ahead of these abuses, and aren't playing an endless game of catch-up.'
CBC
08-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Fact-check: Election fraud claims in Poilievre's riding
Claims about election integrity have circulated online since Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre lost his Carleton riding to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy by more than 4,000 votes. CBC's Ashley Fraser fact-checks some of those claims.
