Oct 14, 2026 · 16 min

AI chatbots enter the voter-guidance business

AI chatbots: the new voter guides?

As local political reporting remains difficult to find, chatbot answers could shape voter choices while confidently mixing useful information with errors and persuasion.

3 key takeaways

1Voters increasingly use chatbots to compare candidates and get personalized political recommendations when local coverage is scarce.
2Confidently worded hallucinations and partisan source material can make unreliable chatbot answers seem authoritative and persuasive.
3Campaigns are beginning to optimize online information for chatbot results, extending election influence beyond social-media algorithms.

Don't miss

The discussion reveals how chatbot verbosity can make an answer feel authoritative even when users skim it and miss errors.

The brief

Maham Javaid explains why voters are turning to ChatGPT for election information: chatbots feel familiar, while reliable coverage of local races can be hard to find.

Voters ask chatbots to identify candidates, compare positions, and recommend choices tailored to their preferences, drawing on sources that can include candidate sites and partisan outlets.

The central risk is not only hallucination but persuasion: a long, authoritative answer can double down on an error or subtly steer a voter before they verify it.

The episode then follows the incentive to answer-engine optimization, as campaigns seek favorable chatbot results and AI becomes another layer of election influence alongside social media.

Domenico Montanaro broadens the concern to future campaigns, including synthetic voices and deepfakes that voters may distrust yet still believe they can recognize.

What was said on this episode

17 statements · 5 positive · 7 negative · 5 neutral

Maham Javaidon AI chatbotsPositive0:47
Existing chatbot use encourages voters to seek political advice from chatbots.
“people are already using chatbots for so many other things that it seems like a natural move for them”
Listen at 0:47
Domenico Montanaroon Artificial IntelligencePositive2:01
AI will play an increasingly important role in the future.
“AI is the future”
Listen at 2:01
Maham Javaidon BallotpediaNeutral3:48
Some chatbots obtain election information from Ballotpedia.
“some of the chatbots pick up their information from”
Listen at 3:48
Maham Javaidon Candidates' official websitesNeutral3:52
Chatbots also source information from candidates’ official websites.
“some of the information on these chatbots is also coming from candidates' official websites”
Listen at 3:52
Domenico Montanaroon AI chatbotsNeutral4:07
Chatbots scrape information broadly from available sources.
“they're scraping everything”
Listen at 4:07
Domenico Montanaroon AI chatbotsNegative4:09
Chatbots may fail to distinguish nonpartisan sources from partisan guides.
“I don't know that they're distinguishing all the time between what the best nonpartisan sources are versus, you know, maybe good guides that are done by. partisan outlets.”
Listen at 4:09
Maham Javaidon ChatGPTPositive5:36
ChatGPT helped a voter choose among candidates after learning his preferences.
“they went candidate by candidate and helped him choose”
Listen at 5:36
Domenico Montanaroon AI chatbotsNegative6:55
Some chatbots hallucinate and provide incorrect election information.
“some of these bots have hallucinated and gotten things wrong”
Listen at 6:55
Domenico Montanaroon AI chatbotsPositive7:32
Chatbots can quickly locate and provide correct election information in some cases.
“those chatbots are pretty good at being able to find the information very quickly and tell you the right information”
Listen at 7:32
Maham Javaidon Chatbot hallucinationNegative8:21
Chatbot hallucination is a significant problem.
“hallucination is a big problem”
Listen at 8:21
Maham Javaidon AI chatbotsNeutral8:33
Some chatbots acknowledge fabricated information when users challenge hallucinations.
“the chatbot will confess that it made something up”
Listen at 8:33
Maham Javaidon AI chatbotsNegative8:36
Some chatbots persist in defending fabricated information after being challenged.
“in other cases, you know, it will double down and it'll like really hold its ground to what it just made up”
Listen at 8:36
Maham Javaidon AI chatbotsNegative8:46
Chatbots are subtly persuasive and excessively agreeable.
“chatbots are known to be subtly persuasive and they are known to be agreeable to a fault”
Listen at 8:46
Maham Javaidon Answer engine optimizationNeutral11:51
Chatbots use answer engine optimization to retrieve or present information.
“chatbots rely on something called AEO, which is answer engine optimization”
Listen at 11:51
Domenico Montanaroon AI in the 2028 presidential campaignNegative12:53
AI’s role in campaigns will be a major issue in the 2028 presidential campaign.
“it's going to be a huge, huge issue in the upcoming 2028 presidential campaign”
Listen at 12:53
Domenico Montanaroon Chatbot use for election issuesPositive13:09
Chatbot use for understanding election issues will rise substantially during the 2028 campaign.
“that 4% number of people who are using chatbots to figure out the issues when they start to really get tuned into the election, that's going to rise pretty substantially”
Listen at 13:09
Domenico Montanaroon AI-generated campaign deepfakesNegative14:26
Campaigns have increasingly used AI-generated voices and candidate deepfakes.
“we've seen an increased use of AI voices, you know, deepfakes of different candidates”
Listen at 14:26

Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.