ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge on Saturday rejected a Republican lawsuit trying to block counties from opening election offices on Saturday and Sunday to let voters hand in their mail ballots in person.

The lawsuit only named Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to 11% of the state’s voters. But at least five other populous counties that tend to vote for Democrats also announced election offices would open over the weekend to allow hand return of absentee ballots.

The lawsuit was filed late Friday and cited a section of Georgia law that says ballot drop boxes cannot be open past the end of advance voting, which ended Friday. But state law says voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until the close of polls at 7 p.m. on Election Day. Despite that clear wording, lawyer Alex Kaufman initially claimed in an emergency hearing Saturday that voters aren’t allowed to hand-deliver absentee ballots that were mailed to them.

Kaufman then argued that voters should be blocked from hand-delivering their ballots between the close of early in-person voting on Friday and the beginning of Election Day on Tuesday, even though he said it was fine for ballots to arrive by mail during that period. It has long been the practice for Georgia election offices to accept mail ballots over the counter.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer, in an online hearing, repeatedly rejected Kaufman’s arguments before orally ruling against him.

“I find that it is not a violation of those two code sections for a voter to hand-return their absentee ballots,” Farmer said.

Republicans have been focused on the conduct of elections in Fulton County for years, after President Donald Trump falsely blamed Fulton County workers for defrauding him of the 2020 election in Georgia.

State GOP chairman Josh McKoon accused counties controlled by Democrats of “illegally accepting ballots.” The issue quickly gained traction online Saturday among Republican activists, particularly after a Fulton County election official sent an email to elections workers saying that observers would not be allowed to sit inside election offices while ballots were turned in.

Fulton County elections director Nadine Williams said during the hearing that these were county offices and not polling places, and thus partisan poll watchers have never been allowed to observe those spaces.

But hours later, Williams sent out an email clarifying that the process should be open to the public and no credentials or badges were needed. She noted that members of the independent monitoring team that is observing Fulton County’s election processes were also on site and that investigators from the secretary of state’s office might also be present.

Fulton County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said that by mid-afternoon Saturday, fewer than 30 ballots had been received at the four locations.

As we approach Election Day, the threat of misinformation looms larger than ever. Researchers in the field of disinformation are particularly concerned about the potential misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) and deepfake technology.

Deepfakes are manipulated videos that can make anyone appear to say and do anything posing a significant risk.

Ahmer Arif, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Information, explains that elections create a “perfect storm” for misinformation. Arif says during high-stress periods, bad actors can easily exploit uncertainty and distrust within the public.

“I’ve done a lot of technical work on how this stuff spreads,” Arif said. “In some ways the pandemic and even elections can be considered this kind of crisis situation. It’s like this period of time where there’s a lot of uncertainty and anxiety. And when that happens, rumors spread naturally. It’s how humans try to come to grips with that kind of uncertainty and establish a sense of control.”

A report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, echoes Arif’s sentiments, the evolution of deepfakes through AI makes it increasingly easier for malicious individuals to mislead the public, potentially leading to disastrous consequences.

“The malicious misuse of synthetic content and deepfakes pose a threat to any company, organization, or government entity that relies on public – or a customer’s – trust to achieve its mission,” the report said. “When seeing is no longer believing, trust in companies, non-government organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the legal system erodes, facilitating an inherently unstable and distrusting environment.”

In roughly 30 minutes, Arif was able to create a deepfake video of Balogun. The specific software he uses allows him to type in anything to make ‘deepfake Balogun’ say anything.

“People are able to produce this stuff like the ease with which this is being, you know, this can be produced has huge implications for society,” Arif warns.

How to Spot Deepfakes

Despite the sophistication of deepfakes, there are methods to identify them. Arif advocates for the SIFT technique, developed by Mike Caufield from the University of Washington, which involves four steps:

1. Stop – Pause before sharing. Take a moment to consider the material you’re viewing.

2. Investigate the Source – Check the credibility of the source.

3. Find Better Coverage – Look for additional reporting on the topic.

4. Trace Claims and Quotes to Original Media – Verify the origins of any claims made.

This approach encourages individuals to engage critically with the content they consume, making it easier to navigate a landscape rife with misinformation.

The DHS report also calls for regulatory measures, including the establishment of a new federal agency to address manipulated content threats.

As the election nears, staying informed and vigilant is crucial. By employing techniques like SIFT and remaining skeptical of sensational claims, everyone can help combat the spread of disinformation.

In 2016, the world knew that Donald J Trump had won the presidency by the time it woke up the morning after Election Day. In 2020, the race wasn’t called for Joseph R Biden Jr until the following Saturday.
This year, either timeline is conceivable, depending on how close the race is. If the result comes down to a few thousand votes in a handful of states, we could be in for a 2020-style wait. But if one candidate outperforms the current polls, which are showing the closest race in many years, the outcome could be clear much sooner.
What happened in 2020?
The 2020 election was held on Tuesday, November 3, but seven decisive states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — remained uncalled the next morning.
The Associated Press called Michigan and Wisconsin for Mr. Biden on Wednesday, bringing him to the brink of an Electoral College majority but not over the threshold.
US Then — because of the time required to count mail ballots, which had been cast in greater numbers than ever before thanks to the pandemic — the nation watched results trickle in slowly for three days before any more states were called.
It was not until Saturday, November 7, that news organizations confirmed Mr. Biden as the winner of Pennsylvania and, with it, the presidency. (Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina were called even later, but the overall verdict arrived shortly before noon on Saturday.)
On election night itself, understanding how states are leaning can be complicated by red and blue “mirages” — artifacts of some states counting mail ballots before in-person ballots, and some states that do the reverse. Because Democrats were disproportionately likely to vote by mail and Republicans disproportionately likely to vote in person, one candidate sometimes appeared to be far ahead, only for the other candidate to surge later.
Does that mean something went wrong?
No. While Mr. Trump seized on the mirages to try to bolster his claims of fraud — and he and his allies may do so again — the results didn’t change. The initial picture was incomplete, and it took a few days to become clear.
While Americans were accustomed before 2020 to knowing who won on election night — at least, setting aside 2000 — vote counting in modern US elections has never been completed in one day. Before the Covid pandemic, news organizations like The Associated Press usually had enough information on election night to state who had won, but that didn’t mean the results were all in. That was the big change in 2020: Because of the increase in mail voting and the partisan divide in who used it, the portion of results available on election night wasn’t representative enough of the whole to make projections in close races.
Is anything different this time?
The composition of the early and mail vote is likely to be less disproportionately Democratic, as more Republicans take advantage of those options. And some states — including Michigan — have changed their laws to allow election workers to begin processing mail ballots before Election Day, which should speed up reporting.
But there will still be partisan disparities within each voting method, and many states have not changed their rules, so the fundamental landscape is not likely to be different.
When is the earliest we could know results?
Polls in the seven swing states that will determine the presidential race will close from 7 to 10 p.m. Eastern.The earliest indications of how the night is going will come in Georgia shortly after 7 p.m. and in North Carolina after 7:30 p.m. If Ms. Harris does well in those states, that could suggest the result won’t come down solely to the slower-counting so-called Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Conversely, if Mr. Trump is winning the Southern battlegrounds, Ms. Harris will still have a plausible path to victory through the Blue Wall, but we’ll have to wait longer to know.
The polls close at 8 pm Eastern in Michigan and Pennsylvania, 9 pm in Wisconsin and Arizona, and 10 pm in Nevada.