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Clerk Matthew Sandbar, 34, demonstrates part of the ballot-sorting process to members of the media attending a walkthrough of the Philadelphia Ballot Processing Center used to process the ballots of the 2022 US midterm elections, in Philadelphia on October 27, 2022.
Photo by Ryan Collerd / AFP via Getty Images
A Democracy Cannot Run on an AI Model
Aug 17, 2026
Tallying the results of Washington, DC’s first ranked-choice election in June took about 10 days—longer than many voters are used to. In an age when artificial intelligence can generate an answer in seconds, waiting days for election results can feel old-fashioned, inefficient, even suspicious. And it is about to matter far more widely. This November, 17 states, cities, and counties will use ranked-choice voting, including Maine and Alaska statewide, in races that could help decide control of Congress. More voters than ever will watch results take days to resolve, and more will be asked to trust a count they cannot see.
But that slowness may be one of its most democratic features.
I come to this question from health informatics, where I study how even AI-generated information that sounds clear, fluent, and helpful still requires careful review before it reaches a patient. The same verification problem applies to elections. The more authoritative a system sounds, the more important it becomes to make sure the output can be checked.
DC’s June 16 primary followed a system that requires more than a simple tally: Voters rank candidates, and if no candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, lower-performing candidates are eliminated, and votes are redistributed according to voters’ next choices. New York City already uses ranked-choice voting in local primary and special elections.
There is nothing wrong with ranked-choice voting, but it must be carried out with verifiable results. Because election counting is not just a math problem; it is a trust problem, especially in the US today, where election workers face harassment, routine counting delays are recast as fraud, and many voters already doubt institutions before a single ballot is counted.
In this climate, counting ranked-choice votes in a way that allows for public verification might take longer than people are used to. Every ballot must be tied to a voter-verifiable record. Every round of tabulation must be explainable. Every disputed outcome must be auditable by people who can inspect the evidence themselves.
AI is not yet counting votes, but AI and machine-assisted systems are already touching elections before ballots are counted, including information voters receive, and how their signatures are reviewed. In 2024, X’s Grok chatbot gave users false information about ballot deadlines; after election officials from five states complained, X changed Grok so election-related questions directed users to Vote.gov, the federal government’s official voting information website. In North Carolina, 10 counties piloted automated signature-verification software for absentee-by-mail ballots in 2024. The pilot did not affect whether any ballot was counted, but later reporting found reliability problems: The software failed to match about 11% of signatures, most software-flagged signatures were approved after human review, and technical issues complicated the test. Neither example is the same as artificial intelligence counting votes, but both show how software can shape what voters are told or what happens before a ballot enters the count.
I have seen the problem in my own research. AI systems can cite studies that do not exist, with titles, authors, and journals that look real until you check them. A 2026 Nature analysis warned that hallucinated citations are polluting scientific literature, and OpenAI researchers have warned that some training and evaluation systems reward guessing over acknowledging uncertainty. A system that gives a confident answer may look more useful, even when that confidence is misplaced, than one that says, “I don’t know.”
That matters because elections often turn on ballot conditions that are not immediately machine readable and need human review: stray marks, undervotes, overvotes, damaged ballots, or ambiguous voter intent. In races where the margin between the candidates is narrow, a few disputed ballots can change the result. These questions should not be resolved by a system whose rules, error rates, or decision process the public cannot understand or meaningfully examine. They should be handled through documented procedures, human review, paper records, and public audits.
Human counting is also imperfect. But precisely because humans are fallible, democratic systems have developed safeguards such as paper ballots, bipartisan observation, chain-of-custody rules, cure processes, recounts, and post-election audits. Risk-limiting audits, for example, hand check samples of paper ballots and can trigger a fuller count if the sample does not support the reported result. Colorado was the first state to conduct a statewide risk-limiting audit in 2017; today, all Colorado counties conduct one before results are certified. Other states have since adopted, required, or piloted risk-limiting audits.
The best election systems do not ask voters to trust either a person or a machine. They produce evidence. That is where current policy is behind the curve. States have moved quickly to regulate AI-generated deepfakes in campaign communications, because fake videos and robocalls can mislead voters. But far less attention has been paid to the AI inside election administration itself. That gap should close before AI moves deeper into election administration, especially into decisions that could affect whether a ballot is accepted, cured, rejected, or counted.
Federal and state governments should establish clear standards for AI used in anything election related. The Brennan Center for Justice has called for such safeguards around quality, transparency, consistency, certification, and monitoring. Election offices should have to explain to the public what an AI system does, who checks it, and how voters can verify the evidence. AI systems whose rules, error rates, or decision process the public cannot understand or meaningfully examine should not make final decisions about whether a ballot counts.
Voters have a role, too. Ask your local election officials whether AI tools are being used anywhere in election administration and how those decisions can be audited. Ask how voters will know if the AI setup gets something wrong. And volunteer as a poll worker. You don’t need a background in elections; local officials train you. Democracy needs more people who understand how ballots are handled, checked, and verified.
AI may soon be able to produce election results in seconds. That does not mean it should. The labor of democracy is not a bottleneck in need of streamlining. It is part of the safeguard.
A Democracy Cannot Run on an AI Model was originally published by Common Dreams and is republished with permission.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual policy conference at the Washington Convention Center March 6, 2018 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Unscrupulousness of AIPAC
Aug 16, 2026
After AIPAC failed to defeat El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary—after spending $32 million—it said that it remains committed to defeating El-Sayed and his "radical, anti-Israel" agenda in the general election. Which means it is poised to sink tens of millions of dollars in supporting Republican Mike Rogers. It also said that Haley Stevens, his opponent, had presented "an authentic Democratic agenda." Meaning that El-Sayed did not? And they think that Mike Rogers, a MAGA Trump supporter, does compared with El-Sayed?
How can AIPAC say that El-Sayed does not present an authentic Democratic agenda when his socialist stance is much more in line with the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence than most centrist Democrats'? And making it sound like AIPAC cares about an authentic Democratic agenda is deceitful, when in the same breath they make clear that they will support Mike Rogers, a Trump lackey, in the general election.
AIPAC's one-dimensional perspective is clearer now than ever. They will fight for the unequivocal U.S. support of Israel at any cost, even if it means having the Republicans and Trump remain in power and destroy our nation.
They are like the Evangelicals to whom there was nothing more important than the creation of a conservative judiciary that would reverse Roe v Wade and other liberal policies, such as LGBT rights, even at the cost of supporting perhaps the most Godless, misogynistic President that the United States has ever had and his MAGA allies. In both cases, they have made a bargain with the devil that will ultimately cost them their souls.
Let me state very clearly at the outset that I, as an American Jew who is the child of holocaust survivors, am a firm supporter of the State of Israel. As illustrated in numerous posts, I have, however, been critical of various actions of past and current Israeli governments towards Palestinians—both Palestinian citizens of Israel and those living in Gaza and the West Bank. See my posts, "The Palestinian/Israel Conflict - A Reality Check," and "A Democrat’s Plan for Ending the War in Gaza and Establishing Peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
And so, I have no problem with there being an organization such as AIPAC that has as its principal mission American support of Israel. But their version of supporting Israel is the "my country, right or wrong" version. It makes no difference what the government in power does; it doesn't matter how egregious the policies and actions of Netanyahu are; they support Israel regardless.
That position is not, in my view, supporting Israel's best interests. Israel has not just become a pariah among many formerly supportive governments around the world; it has suffered existential damage and is further from achieving security for its people than perhaps ever.
When looking at AIPAC's actions, I believe they support Netanyahu because they are as right-wing as he is. They have voiced no criticism of the settlers or other right-wing Israelis that have nothing but contempt for Palestinians. Officially, they support a two-state solution, but their support of Netanyahu's government and settler actions against Palestinians makes that official position a farce, a proverbial "fig leaf."
They are not an organization that asks, how do we support Israel while always acting in the best interests of the United States. They could do so much good with their money and influence. They could work for a better, more democratic Israel, but instead they are supporters of the Netanyahu government. They could work for an Israel that is at peace with its neighbors and is the core of an economic engine that transforms the Middle East. Instead, they work for an Israel that maintains itself through force and fear, never allowing its people to experience the security that comes from living in peace.
Israel deserves the United States' support. But that support should not be unconditional. It is not the role of the U.S. to judge Israeli governments, but when a government takes action that is contrary to international law and is questionable from a human rights standpoint, it should withhold support.
U.S. law provides for withholding arms sales in various situations. First, defense articles may be sold only for specific purposes, including "internal security and legitimate self-defense." Second, no security assistance may be provided to any country whose government engages in a "consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." Without question, the use of arms against Gaza has gone far beyond "legitimate self-defense" and is evidence of a "consistent pattern" of gross violations of human rights.
AIPAC's support of Israel, regardless of what it is doing, encourages a violation of U.S. law by members of Congress and is unscrupulous.
Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of We Still Hold These Truths. Read more of his writing at www.PreservingAmericanValues.com
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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Scientists Warn of Deepening Federal Attacks on Research
Aug 16, 2026
Scientists and the federal government have been close partners since World War II. A landmark report by President Truman’s chief science advisor laid out a vision for government research that shaped eight decades of federally funded science. That vision is now at risk. In principle, the Trump administration has supported scientific research with its own vision for a new “golden age of science.” But in practice, the administration has upended the relationship between the government, researchers, and their institutions. The changes have alarmed working scientists and their allies, who have protested in record numbers.
In July, I moderated a webinar on “Rewriting the Rules: What’s happening to public science?” (read the transcript here). The webinar was co-sponsored by NAPA, CODE, and the Bridge Alliance, with Dr. Aaron Carroll of AcademyHealth, Dr. Chris Marcum of the Federation of American Scientists, Dr. Gretchen Goldman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Dr. Maryam Zaringhalam of the Center for Open Science. I also interviewed Cole Donovan of the Stand Up for Science Foundation by email.
These leaders described many new risks to the scientific enterprise, including:
· Government threats to science across the board. The Union of Concerned Scientists maintains a tracker that has identified about 600 “attacks on science” so far under this administration – more than double the number in President Trump’s entire first term.
· Uncertainty and unpredictability. The administration has pulled back grants that were already obligated, ignored Congressional mandates, and canceled ongoing research programs in the middle of their work, resulting in what Aaron Carroll calls “chaotic” outcomes.
· Greater difficulty accessing data. Chris Marcum, who monitors risks to federal data with his colleagues at dataindex.us, describes “a strong effort to increase the friction for the public to access federal information, whether it's through removing websites or taking down data sets or removing data tools.”
· Damage to health, climate, and environmental research. In health, the Trump administration has gone after the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, among other agencies and programs. On climate and the environment, it has targeted NOAA, the USDA, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
· Undermining trust in science. In May 2025, President Trump issued an executive order on “Restoring Gold Standard Science” premised on the view that “trust in science is going down, and that researchers have earned this mistrust,” says Maryam Zaringhalam. The Center for Open Science responded to the executive order with its own statement.
· Plans to place grant funding under political control. Since the beginning, this administration has eroded long-established systems for independent review of research, for example by disbanding committees that advise federal agencies. Now a proposed regulation from the Office of Management and Budget would require political appointees to review federal grants and empower agencies to cancel or terminate grants based on new priorities. If enacted, the regulation would effectively “end American science has we currently know it,” says Cole Donovan,
These threats have triggered large-scale protests. The proposed OMB regulation generated a remarkable 50 thousand public comments, with an overwhelming majority opposing it. While the ultimate fate of the regulation is unknown, the protest had an immediate impact: The Senate’s stopgap funding bill, passed almost unanimously in early August, includes a provision to stop OMB from implementing its proposed regulation at least until December.
Whatever else happens, the administration’s actions have led thousands of scientists out of the comfort zone of their labs and institutions. Stand Up for Science, founded right after President Trump’s inauguration, has organized marches and political campaigns to support American science in new ways. At the same time, the Union of Concerned Scientists, founded to protest military research during the Viet Nam War, has seen its network grow by more than 50 percent during this administration – and has successfully sued the government over a Department of Energy report that disputed climate science.
The future of American science may be uncertain, but public support for science has never been stronger. New organizations, new coalitions, and a new spirit of activism can protect and even invigorate the national scientific enterprise that we have taken for granted for too long.
You can find the full video of the webinar “Rewriting the Rules: What’s happening to public science?”
Joel Gurin is the president and founder of the Center for Open Data.Keep ReadingShow less
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Why hasn’t the Princeton Redistricting Project spoken out?
Aug 16, 2026
The 2026 congressional map is finally set after ten states adopted new congressional redistricting maps for the November 3 General Election. Observers note that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project (PGP) has not graded any state’s maps since it gave California’s Proposition 50 an “F” on October 30, 2025.
The PGP has officially paused grading its Redistricting Report Card because founder Dr. Sam Wang, who transitioned from the Gerrymandering Project to the Electoral Innovation Lab, has launched a campaign for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th District, requiring him to step back from his academic roles, including his leadership at PGP.
With the nonpartisan anti-corruption organization RepresentUs, the PGP created the Redistricting Report Card. The project grades maps on a scale from A to F using three criteria: partisan fairness, competitiveness, and geographic features (compactness and preservation of community cohesion).
This focuses solely on partisan fairness, which assesses whether the map gives one political party an unfair advantage over the other. To provide clarity, I am sharing my own analysis and grades for each state rather than official PGP evaluations. This should clarify my perspective and reasoning, and I urge you to consult nonpartisan sources and, where available, official PGP materials.
(On March 20, 2022, The Fulcrum published my grade for my birth state, West Virginia, because the PGP listed it among five states without draft maps. Later, the PGP graded the Mountaineer State an “A.”)
For the 2022 election, 22 states received “A” for their enacted congressional maps, five received “B,” four received “C,” three received “D,” and eight received “F.” Two states had insufficient data (Hawaii and Rhode Island). Six had an at-large representative (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming).
The following ten states redrew their congressional maps through legislative action and court orders:
TEXAS: Up to 3-5 Republican seats
In Texas, the 2022 PGP grade was “F,” reflecting a 24-to-13 Republican advantage. The governor signed the 2026 congressional map on August 29, 2025, which could create up to five new Republican-leaning seats. The grade is likely to remain at “F.”
CALIFORNIA: Up to 4-5 Democratic seats
In California, the 2022 PGP grade was “B,” reflecting a 40-to-12 Democratic advantage. The California Legislature passed legislation and a constitutional amendment on August 21, 2025, to redraw the state's congressional districts. Voters subsequently approved the map as Proposition 50 in a special election on November 4, 2025. This change could affect the competitiveness of at least five Republican-held seats. Independent Voter News noted that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project rates California’s Proposition 50 an “F,” lowering the grade.
[Note: The new 40th Congressional District, one of five seats Democrats hope to flip, will not be flipped because two Republicans advanced to the General Election after the top-two primary on June 2.]
MISSOURI: Up to 1 new Republican seat
On September 28, 2025, Missouri became the third state to attempt to redraw its districts for partisan advantage after the state governor signed a revised House map into law. That map could help Republicans win an additional seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district in Kansas City. On July 23, 2026, a federal district court denied a motion to block Missouri’s redrawn congressional map and ordered that the districts be used in the August 4, 2026, primary elections. Missouri’s 2202 PGP grade of “A” should be changed to “C.”
NORTH CAROLINA: Up to 1 new Republican seat
The Republican-led General Assembly gave final approval on October 22, 2025, to revised districts that could help Republicans win an additional seat, with a focus on the 1st District. (The Governor cannot veto redistricting plans under the state Constitution.) North Carolina’s 2022 PGP grade of “B” was downgraded to “F” for the 2026 map.
OHIO: Up to 1-2 new Republican seats
On October 31, 2025, the Ohio Redistricting Commission unanimously approved a 2026 congressional map for the state’s 15 U.S. House districts. The map, which remains in effect until 2031, increases the Republican advantage in the state from 10-5 (since the 2022 election) to a projected 12-3 margin. The new grade could drop from a 2022 PGP grade of “D” to “F.”
UTAH: Up to 1 new Democratic seat
On November 10, 2025, a Utah state judge rejected a Republican-drawn congressional map and approved an alternative that included a solidly Democratic district in the Salt Lake City area. The decision may affect all four congressional districts currently held by Republicans and could shift one seat to Democrats. The grade is predicted to rise from the 2022 PGP “F” to a “C.”
FLORIDA: Up to 4 Republican seats
On May 4, 2026, the Florida Governor signed the controversial mid-decade congressional map into law to counteract redistricting actions in other states and to improve the GOP’s chances of winning four additional seats. The map reshapes 28 U.S. House seats to heavily favor Republicans, resulting in a 24-4 partisan split. The new map will not change Florida’s 2022 PGP grade, which was an “F.”
LOUISIANA: Up to 1 Republican seat
On May 29, 2026, the Louisiana Governor signed a new congressional map intended to shift one of the state’s two Democratic districts toward the Republican Party, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais. This action reduced the 2022 PGP grade from “A” to “C.”
ALABAMA: Up to 1 Republican seat
On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama could use its 2023 congressional map for the 2026 General Election. The map, whose 2022 PGP grade was downgraded from “A” to “F,” is expected to increase Republican representation by one seat. The current delegation is seven Republicans and two Democrats. The map’s grade is expected to remain “F.”
TENNESSEE: Up to 1 Republican seat
On July 23, 2026, a federal three-judge panel ordered Tennessee to adopt a new congressional map that splits a majority-Black district in Memphis. As a result, the state is likely to elect an all-Republican delegation to Congress this fall. Like Louisiana, Tennessee’s 2022 PGP grade of “A” has dropped to “C”.
For the 2022 PGP grade your state received, refer to the list below. Check your state’s grade, then compare it with the 2026 projections to see how the map may change. States receiving an “A” include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Washington. States with a “B” grade are Iowa, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Oklahoma received a “C.” New Mexico and Oregon received a “D.” Illinois, Kansas, Nevada, South Carolina, and Wisconsin received an “F.”
For 2026, ‘A’ states are projected to decline from 22 to 21, including Hawaii and Rhode Island; ‘B’ from 5 to 3; ‘C’ from 4 to 7; and ‘D’ from 3 to 2. The number of ‘F’ states is projected to increase from 8 to 11. Review these shifts to identify where partisan fairness changes most.
Let’s punt a PGP football (not soccer) to the Electoral Innovation Lab for the rest of this census decade.
Howard Gorrell is an advocate for the deaf, a former Republican Party election statistician, and a longtime congressional aide. He has been advocating against partisan gerrymandering for four decades.
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