GEOFF BENNETT: The U.S.

Postal Service has proposed new rules that would require states to hand over data on voters who receive mail-in ballots for federal elections.

It comes after President Trump signed an executive order earlier this year tightening mail-in voting rules with a stated goal of making elections more secure.

But a report out today says the most likely threats to election security this November come from other sources.

Our Liz Landers recently sat down with one of the authors of that report.

LIZ LANDERS: Members of the Trump administration are ramping up warnings about election security as the midterms draw closer, citing conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, voter fraud, and more.

The president himself repeated those claims from the Oval Office last month, urging Congress to pass legislation he says will secure elections.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I think the elections are so rigged and we have to do something about it, and we're going to do something about it.

But we cannot continue to have -- and, frankly, the Senate and the House, they ought to get together and they ought to pass the SAVE America Act, so that you have voter I.D.

And it's so important you have proof of citizenship, little thing like proof of citizenship, and also mail-in voting, which is so crooked.

LIZ LANDERS: A new report first shared with PBS News by the cybersecurity company Check Point Software Technologies outlines what should and should not be a concern for voters going into the midterms.

It also analyzes threats from foreign actors, artificial intelligence, vulnerabilities for voting machines, and more.

Joining me now to discuss that report is Aaron Rose, a security expert with Check Point Software.

Aaron, thanks so much for joining us.

AARON ROSE, Check Point Software Technologies: Thanks for having me.

LIZ LANDERS: PBS News had a poll from March that found that 85 percent of registered voters say it's likely that political content generated by A.I.

will spread misinformation related to these upcoming November elections.

How is artificial intelligence accelerating those vulnerabilities and misinformation about our elections here?

AARON ROSE: Now that we're in the age of A.I., it can consume and take so much data and learn so much about us that it can generate things that are believable, not just things that are like a phishing e-mail, but content that's shared on social media or deepfake videos that are getting harder and harder to actually tell what they truly are.

So A.I.

is accelerating, unfortunately, all of this misinformation that we're seeing, especially when it comes to the elections coming up.

LIZ LANDERS: Your report details how foreign adversaries like Iran, Russia and China will likely want to try to influence these midterm elections.

What are they interested in and what are their objectives?

AARON ROSE: Yes, so finding their objectives -- I think the objectives in a lot of way are clear.

They want to either steer it or they want to cause confusion.

So when we're talking about the election, what a lot of people are concerned with when it comes to security is the electronic ballots, right?

They're thinking, OK, somebody's going to hack a voting machine.

Now, I'm not saying that that's implausible.

It is very possible for that to happen.

In fact, it's been proven, but it does require physical access to the machines.

It's very complicated to do that, especially do that at scale.

You start to think about the United States, how many people we have, how many congressional districts, et cetera, that is a lot of machines that they would have to have physical access to actually be able to change the outcome of the election.

However, if you think about it on the flip side of kind of misinformation and confusing people and essentially eroding the trust in the system, that is something that they can do just by spreading misinformation.

So if they can just confuse, I don't know, 10,000 voters maybe in a swing state or area, that alone could shape and change the outcome of the election.

LIZ LANDERS: This administration and the president in particular talk a lot about issues that they perceive with the elections in this country.

Not a lot of what I have heard from the president and what I have heard from the administration overlap with the concerns that are outlined in your report.

Is the administration focused on the right problems?

AARON ROSE: You know, I think there's a lot of issues that we need to address.

There's questions of integrity when it comes to our election systems.

And I'm not going to say either way.

I think that they can be valid in a lot of ways.

But, for us, we're focusing more on the technological, but also the psychological side of things and how they're using technology to do so.

LIZ LANDERS: Are social media companies paying attention and taking responsibility for their role in how misinformation and disinformation in particular can be spread to influence these elections?

AARON ROSE: They're starting to.

I will definitely give some applause or give some positive feedback to them.

I'm starting to see more and more of, like, labels that are being applied to videos and images that may or may not be A.I.-generated.

There's community notes by several of the platforms now, to where people can kind of validate the facts.

So it appears that they are.

They're making an effort.

And it's not an easy problem to solve.

Unfortunately, there isn't a Band-Aid.

There isn't a silver bullet to solve all of this at once.

So I think that every step that we make in that direction is a good step to make.

LIZ LANDERS: What are your recommendations for jurisdictions and for people that implement elections in this country and also for voters to be aware of going into the midterms?

AARON ROSE: So, when you think about, like, individual jurisdictions and kind of, like, smaller counties, municipalities, et cetera, the data that they have or the ability to influence the election is still very high.

And the risk against them is the same as the risk against some of the largest federal agencies that we might have here in the United States.

Unfortunately, there's a disparate -- there's a problem between those two, where one has a much larger budget than the other, right?

So they need to -- unfortunately, they're going to have to do more with less.

They're going to have to pay attention.

They're going to have to implement cybersecurity controls in all areas, physical access controls as well.

Now, when it comes down to the individual voters, this gets a little bit more difficult, because what I would ask everyone is that, when you're seeing information, so if you're seeing a new news story that's shared maybe on Facebook or some other platform, stop for just a moment and really analyze it.

Say, maybe this agrees with everything that I feel politically or not.

Before I repost that, I want to make sure that it's coming from a reputable source.

I want to look and pay attention to that URL and make sure it's something that's legitimate.

LIZ LANDERS: Is the federal government educating the public on this?

And are you working with agencies like CISA, which is the Cybersecurity Agency, that has typically handled the hardening of election infrastructure in this country in the past?

AARON ROSE: Yes, so the federal government has actually done quite a bit.

And I think education is the key.

We have got to educate people to become trained professionals in cybersecurity, but we also need to be able to train consumers and educate them on the risks that are associated.

So I think the federal government is doing quite a bit.

Now, whether or not that's enough, that's a great question, unfortunately.

We will kind of see that after the fact or in the future.

LIZ LANDERS: Do you think that the Trump administration in particular is doing enough to educate the public on these election security concerns?

AARON ROSE: I do believe the current administration, though, has brought up the topic around election security quite a bit.

It's been top of mind for a lot of people.

But the real risk that we're facing is misinformation and confusion, which ultimately erode the trust of the American people.

And I think that area needs a bit more focus at the present time.

LIZ LANDERS: Bottom line here, should Americans have trust in the election system going into November?

AARON ROSE: I'm a very hopeful person, so I'm going to say, yes, I think so.

We haven't seen hard evidence or anything that shows that the back-end systems, that the voting machines, the ballot counting, et cetera, we haven't seen anything like that to say that has definitively been breached or manipulated in any way.

LIZ LANDERS: Aaron Rose, thank you for your time.

AARON ROSE: Thank you.

I appreciate it.