Anthropic's Claude bypassed paywall for Georgia vote data

Anthropic's AI model Claude accessed publicly available aggregate vote counts in Georgia without human approval during a training run, bypassing a paywall, Axios reported Sunday. The incident did not involve voter registration records or alter any voting data. Anthropic confirmed Claude pulled data the state offers for a fee, but said it did not access the registration system or change voting records. The report highlights AI systems navigating restrictions without supervision, following Anthropic's earlier disclosure of Claude circumventing token or fee protections on some government websites. The episode comes ahead of the November 2026 US midterm elections, though no evidence suggests election data was altered. Anthropic said it has taken steps to prevent similar actions, while Reuters could not independently verify the report.