With the 2024 presidential contest hinging on a few thousand votes in roughly seven states, every ballot, and who is casting them, is facing intense scrutiny. Besides a handful of national rules governing the voting process, each state is allowed a certain amount of leeway to conduct elections the way it sees fit. Those differing processes were a bone of contention for former President Donald Trump and some Republicans in 2020 when the pace of results being published appeared to snatch victories out from under them.
Similar complaints played out two years later. In Arizona, in particular, Senate candidate Kari Lake lost her contest with now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) to be the state’s next governor. Lake has refused to acknowledge her defeat, echoing Trump’s “stolen election” rhetoric and casting doubt on the integrity of the state’s system.
Republicans have made Arizona the focus of lawsuits and investigations for four years as they look to wrest the once reliably red state back from its purplish hue.
President Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by roughly 11,000 votes. One of the most competitive and important Senate contests is playing out in the Grand Canyon State, with Lake facing off against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in a fight that is likely to alter control of the upper chamber.
With so much interest rising out West in the desert, the Washington Examiner chose to start our series on Battleground Ballots there. Over the coming days, we are taking deep dives on the rules regulating elections in various swing states. We will help explain why those states have been targeted as the toughest battlegrounds to win and what challenges lie ahead in terms of lawsuits and investigations, as well as offer a primer on who is going to appear on their ballots.
This morning, Senate Reporter Ramsey Touchberry started our series with a thorough examination of Arizona.
The most recent development in the state has been a Republican National Committee lawsuit challenging Arizona officials to require that voters present proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Currently, registration forms require voters to check a box acknowledging they are citizens and are legally allowed to vote, but there is no follow-up requirement to provide proof of citizenship.
“A recent ruling by the Supreme Court delivered the Republican National Committee a small victory when it ruled that Arizona officials must reject state voter registration forms that are submitted without an applicant’s proof of U.S. citizenship,” Ramsey wrote.
“The ruling effectively means that tens of thousands of Arizona voters will be registered only for federal elections in 2024 until they can prove their citizenship. But Arizona counties are also making changes to ballot systems and encouraging early voting, which starts almost a month ahead of the general election, that could affect voters when they cast their ballots in federal, state, and local elections on Nov. 5,” he wrote.
Challenging voting registration rules is only one of several fights playing out, though. Republicans are also trying to argue Hobbs overstepped her authority by approving new sites for ballot drop boxes and are trying to clean up voter roles, arguing there are more than 500,000 people who are either dead or have left the state still eligible to vote.
Click here to read Ramsey’s deep dive into everything you need to know about Arizona in 2024.
Not-so-artificial concerns
Big Tech and a former big gun in the Trump administration are partnering up to raise the alarm about how artificial intelligence, with the wrong inputs, poses major risks to the world.
It’s not clear what kinds of benefits and harms exactly the near-miraculous levels of information AI can produce are ahead. The sci-fi fantasies of computers completely replacing humans aren’t likely to come anytime soon, but the machine-learning capabilities of emerging technologies are changing the way every facet of the world works. Whether countries or industries are interested in adopting AI procedures as part of the new normal, they are looking to their right and left and seeing competitors weighing the benefits and drawbacks of doing so themselves.
When it comes to hard power, “Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt have raised alarm bells that the United States military remains unprepared as other nations have rapidly adopted artificial intelligence technology,” Breaking News Reporter Elaine Mallon wrote for us this morning.
“Ukraine is using AI-enabled drones to strike Russian targets, spurring an AI development arms race with Russia. China is researching how to use AI in missile guidance and target detection and identification. Even in Sudan, insurgents are using AI to help them fight,” she wrote.
The U.S. military is jumping on board the AI train, requesting more than $3 billion in its 2025 budget to aid AI research. But Milley and Schmidt aren’t concerned with the country’s lack of interest in AI. The greater problem is a lack of cooperation with allies to build out AI capabilities.
“The idea is to share data, share algorithms, and most important is sharing the format of the data,” Ari Sacher, rocket scientist and senior policy adviser at the U.S. Israel Education Association, told Elaine. “And it turns out that the Chinese and the United States work in different formats, and eventually, the world is going to work in one format, and there’s going to be a tipping point. And if China wins this data war, then America will lose AI dominance.”
Click here to read more from Elaine about the dangers lurking on the AI horizon.
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For your radar
Biden will deliver remarks at the Investing in America content series at 2 p.m.
Vice President Kamala Harris does not have anything on her public schedule.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Tom Perez will hold the White House press briefing at 2:30 p.m.
