Voters Are Turning to AI for Election Help. The Answers Aren’t Always Right

“We know that voters are going to turn to chatbots more and more,” said Valeria de la Fuente, a digital research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who recently co-authored a report on election-related misinformation from chatbots. “So the quality of the responses that we found is concerning.”

Google’s new election policy is a less cautious stance than the one the company took in 2022 and 2024 when it blocked Gemini from answering certain election-related questions, pushing users to seek answers from Google search instead.  

“People come to Google to stay informed during election season—like when finding their polling site, watching candidate debates, or tracking results on election night,” the company said in Wednesday’s blog post. “We take the responsibility to deliver high quality, trustworthy information seriously.”

Other tech companies have taken similar approaches. Both OpenAI and Anthropic said their chatbots would direct users to voting information from the nonprofit Democracy Works. OpenAI also plans to provide live vote counts from The Associated Press, and monitor its systems for signs of political bias. Meta spokesman Corey Chambliss said when MetaAI users ask about voting and participating in elections, the service will give them local information or direct them to government sources.