Artificial intelligence is changing the way voters gather information on candidates running in the 2026 midterm elections. Voters are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for information instead of Google, and political campaigns are deploying deepfakes of their opponents.
AI Systems Improve, But Still Fall Short
Major tech companies have embedded AI into their products, and hundreds of millions of people have adopted the tools. However, research and experts state that while AI systems have gotten better at handling basic facts, they’re nowhere near reliable enough to be a main source of accurate or complete information.
Thania Sanchez, senior vice president of research and analytics at the nonprofit States United Democracy Center, said, "I think this is one of the first elections we’re seeing…where AI is just everywhere. Even if you just Google it, [now] the first thing that comes up is the AI overview."
Testing AI Models
States United Democracy Center tested two of the most popular AI tools — OpenAI’s ChatGPT’s free tier and the AI interface used alongside Google Search — for their performance on a series of basic questions around elections. The models were chosen because they are free and easy to access.
The nonprofit ran two rounds of testing in 2025 and 2026, collecting nearly one thousand responses from the models submitted by users across six swing states. In 2025 tests, 6.9% of responses from Google AI and 8.2% responses from ChatGPT "contained verifiable factual errors," like not listing the correct candidates in a race or false guidance around polling site locations.
However, follow-up tests in 2026 found that the error rates in both models had dropped to zero. The study notes that "this is real progress and should be acknowledged." But underneath those topline numbers, a more murky picture emerges around the tools’ reliability.
Limitations of AI Responses
An AI response can sound accurate without actually being complete. ChatGPT provided incomplete lists of current gubernatorial primary race candidates 88.9% of the time when queried. Linking to a state election website – an output the study considers the single most important measure of voter utility – happened less than 40% of the time.
Sanchez said, "It will be like ‘this person is the Republican candidate and this person is the Democratic candidate’ but it is not telling you there’s also these other third-party candidates. It’s not giving you complete information, so the voter thinks these are the [only] two people running."
Voters' Reliance on AI Chatbots
A June survey from the Pew Research Center found that about half of U.S. adults reported having used chatbots at least once, up from a third in 2024, while a quarter reported using them daily. The top use case listed for engaging with the chatbot was searching for information.
Isabel Linzer, an elections policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said that voters, campaigns, and governments alike are using AI more freely and with fewer restrictions. Bad actors in the information space have followed suit, and "we are in a phase now of generative engine optimization" where information operations are structured to rank higher in AI model responses.
Linzner said most people are still best served by going directly to local sources for accurate information on elections. With issues like ideological bias, the potential for bespoke or sycophantic answers for each user based on their prior chat histories, and lack of predictability, voters should still be very careful about using AI chatbots as political truth machines.
The best thing that tech companies can do to educate voters is "making sure that for high-stakes situations like elections, that chats are connecting directly to the most important sources, like the website where you can actually register to vote," said Linzer.
Source: CyberScoop