Election security: ‘The important thing for us is to retain the integrity of the electoral process’

While it might bring a smile to some readers, it is the type of disinformation that some people might believe.

That’s where Art O’Leary and his team come in.

“I mean, if that happened here, we would obviously intervene and say, ‘please don’t write your name on the ballot paper because that will negate your vote and your vote will not count’,” he said.

The chief executive of the Electoral Commission recounted another example in the referendum campaign just gone.

“Somebody put up a post in advance of the referendum to say, ‘bring a pen with you to the polling booth tomorrow, because if you use one of their pencils that will allow them to rub out your vote’ and, you know, people do it,” Mr O’Leary said. 

“The notion that somebody might try to rub out your vote is something that we would certainly have to intervene and say, ‘we don’t do that. That doesn’t happen’.”

However, he acknowledged that we live in a time of ‘notions’, both misinformed and malicious.

‘Send in the army’

Examples of the latter plague social media. Last September, during the Dublin riots a video and photographs circulated of Army vehicles on what looked like a Dublin street with accompanying text stating that the Defence Forces were being deployed to deal with the violence.

It was spread by far-right and conservative accounts, but also reposted by other non-political organisations. It convinced a lot of people, including long-time Fine Gael politician Regina Doherty, who said: 

I can admit that the night we had the awful riots in Dublin, I absolutely believed that the Army was on its way to Dublin.

Speaking at a recent session of the Oireachtas European Union affairs committee, she said she had seen a picture of it on social media: “I thought it must be true, but it turned out to be total nonsense.” 

As often happens in acts of disinformation, a genuine video or photograph — in this case of an previous Army exercise — was used to spread malicious rumours which, understandably, spread like wildfire, fuelling the online frenzy that night.

Mr O’Leary said artificial intelligence not only facilitates the production of false imagery, but also make such images more persuasive.

“We heard the Joe Biden message,” he said, referring to a ‘robocall’ recorded phone message, generated by AI to mimic the voice of the US president, sent out last January to discourage people from voting in a primary election.

“The message said, ‘please don’t go out to vote. Don’t waste your vote voting for me now. Keep it until November when I need it most’. And it sounded like him.” 

Mr O’Leary said people don’t need to be coders anymore and can buy software that allows them to type in text of what they want and the application does the rest.

He said: “I think the moment, about 18 months ago, where the Irish people really sat up was the [fake, AI-generated] photograph of the Pope and the white puffer jacket.”

Electoral process

Mr O’Leary is clear that the Electoral Commission will not intervene regarding general online disinformation on political issues — such as immigration.

“There is a difference here between electoral process information and things and differences which will emerge during the course of the election,” he explained.

“On the latter, we have no statutory role. The important thing for us is to retain the integrity of the electoral process and ensure there is no misinformation or disinformation, which can cause public harm and affect people’s perception of the electoral process.”

He said he did not want the actions of the Electoral Commission to have a “chilling effect” on debate where people become “worried about the language they use”.

He pointed out that Ireland has “very strong freedom of expression rights” in the Constitution and that the Electoral Commission’s role is to “balance that” with the State’s role to protect the integrity of the electoral process.

He explained that the difference between disinformation and misinformation is intent: “Someone spreading misinformation may be something they perhaps believe to be true, and disinformation where someone creates content with the purpose of deceiving people or manipulating public opinion.

“What the two have in common is that they can both cause public harm. That is the bar. That is the bit where we must intervene, never mind whether there was intent.

“We do this if [the harm] affects the integrity of the electoral process.”

Mr O’Leary said the broadcasting regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, has a broader role in relation to online harm and disinformation. 

He said the Electoral Commission was still young, just over a year old.

No powers... yet

Part 5 of the Electoral Reform Act 2022 gives the Electoral Commission the power to act against social media firms regarding disinformation and elections.

Unfortunately, the powers have not been commenced yet by the Government — and won’t be before the European Parliament and local elections on June 7.

“Part Five of the legislation deals with misinformation and disinformation,” Mr O’Leary said. “The powers are very strong. The chief executive has the authority to instruct social media companies either to take down posts or to label posts or to remove things from their various platforms.”

Non-compliance could result in substantial fines.

Mr O’Leary said that Part Four concerns online political advertising, and the transparency that such advertising is clearly labelled as such.

“I should say that neither of these parts have been commenced yet, so we don’t have any regulatory, investigative, or sanctioning powers that are envisaged in the act.”

This is because Ireland has to wait on a sign-off from the European Commission which is bringing in similar rules across the EU, and currently has draft rules out for public consultation.

In the meantime, the Electoral Commission is dependent on informal contact with the social media companies.

“We have met all the social media companies and we have a good working relationship,” Mr O’Leary said. “I have found them positive because they outlined the process by which they would deal with misinformation and disinformation. They then gave us access to senior people in the organisations, at speed, if need be.”

He said speed was “of essence” as during the “white hot heat” of an election, disinformation had be tackled within hours, if not minutes. “They are very conscious that their platforms are a place where quite serious damage can be done to democracy.”

Damage to democracy

Members of the Oireachtas EU committee expressed deep scepticism about the sincerity of the social media companies at a hearing last February.

They told Mr O’Leary that the Electoral Commission and Coimisiún na Meán were trying to get social media companies to cut down the very things — posts on disinformation and division — that drives engagement, advertising, and profits.

Responding, Mr O’Leary said: “I’ve been around in this space for a long, long time. I am not naive. The proof will be in the pudding.

“The implications for social media companies [if they fail to act on disinformation] aren’t good. To be accused after the event of having impacted on the outcome of an election is huge.”

He said one of the main strengths of the commission is its power to conduct a “review” post-election.

“These post-election reviews will document what we saw, what we did not see, how things worked well and where things did not work and need improvement,” he said. “We are trying to create a learning organisation because the stakes here are so high and the environment is changing so quickly.”

He said: “The rise of inauthentic material and the potential impact this can have on electoral events is something that we should be concerned about. Not because we believe it is going to happen, but we need to deal with the possibility that it might.” 

He said that, in addition to the threat from domestic interference, was the threat of foreign interference: “Misinformation and disinformation can be domestic or foreign and from state and non-state actors. 

"We need to be cautious and expect that the interference can come from anywhere.” 

He said there was “no real evidence” of malign foreign interference to date — but added that the last elections were four years ago, and the global political environment “has moved on considerably”.

‘Huge’ challenge

There are 23 staff in the Electoral Commission and seven commission members, bringing the total to 30. He hopes to have 50 staff by the end of the year.

Mr O’Leary concedes they don’t have a dedicated unit to monitor social media: “It’s something that we are considering as part of the preparation for implementation of Parts Four and Five.” 

He said the commission could set up a disinformation register like those in Germany or Australia.

“There’s no huge requirement for it yet, but if there is a lot of stuff that people are saying that clearly isn’t true, then we can do it,” he said. “We could do it with 15 minutes notice.”

He acknowledged the scale of disinformation and misinformation online was a massive challenge for his team: “It’s huge,” he said. “Some of the advice tends to say that you shouldn’t be looking at individual tweets or postings, you should be looking at the wider and larger trends.”

The commission chief said they are linked with other agencies in Ireland working on disinformation and said the links become a “bit more structured” in advance of elections. 

He said they don’t have their own cyber experts but “have access to them” in the National Cyber Security Centre. 

It is understood that An Garda Síochána will, in time, devise a memorandum of understanding regarding how it works and exchanges information with the Electoral Commission. In the meantime, and during the upcoming election campaigns, the work will be done on an “ad hoc” basis.

Ahead of the referenda on family and care, The Ditch website published the advice of the Attorney General on March 7, the day before polling day. It occurred just after the 2pm watershed for broadcast and print media.

Mr O’Leary would not comment on the specific issue, but did say there was an issue with the moratorium in general.

“Well, it doesn’t apply online,” he said.

“It was brought in in a different environment and it might be something we need to have a look at. We’re not making any recommendation but certainly it might be worthy of consideration.”