Voters turn to AI tools as 2026 midterm voting begins
publishers 33articles 44first reported 28 Sep, 20:00 UTCdeveloping since 29 Sep · 31 editions
Early voting is underway in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, including in Minnesota, where voters began casting ballots Sept. 18. With Election Day about a month away, voters are weighing candidates and issues across a broad electoral battlefield that includes key counties to watch.
Some voters are adding artificial-intelligence chatbots to their election research. NPR reported that voters are using tools such as ChatGPT to review races, compare candidates, investigate down-ballot contests and examine viral claims. One West Virginia voter described spending hours discussing his ballot and political priorities with ChatGPT, which said it could help compare evidence and candidates using criteria he selected but should not tell him how to vote.
About half of U.S. adults use AI-powered chatbots, and 42% of users employ them to search for information, according to Pew Research Center figures cited by NPR. Researchers caution that chatbots can be subtly persuasive, reinforce a user’s existing leanings and increase confidence without necessarily improving understanding. Rafael Batista, a Johns Hopkins University fellow who studies AI’s influence, also noted that companies generally do not disclose how commercial models are trained or how they select sources, making potential biases difficult to assess.
HOW THIS STORY WAS MADE
Written from 8 articles, 5 with the publisher's own text; 8 independent newsrooms once syndicated copies count as one; this version written 114 h after the record first saw the story; the editor revised it.
- Publishers
- 33
- Source articles
- 44
- Given to the writer
- 8, 5 with the article's own text
- Independent newsrooms
- 8
- This version written
- 114 h after the record first saw the story
- Second model (editor)
- revised
- Publication gate
- passed
- Human review
- none
WHAT THE EDITOR DID
The second model checked the writer's draft against the same sources and changed it before publication. Struck words were in the draft; underlined words are its corrections.
WHAT IT FLAGGED editor revise: One phrase misstates the CNN source by turning counties to watch into county-level contests. - "a broad electoral battlefield that includes key county-level contests": The sources refer to counties to watch in the midterm battlefield, not to key county-level contests.
THE DRAFT AND THE CHANGES
Voters turn to AI tools as 2026 midterm voting begins
Early voting is underway in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, including in Minnesota, where voters began casting ballots Sept. 18. With Election Day about a month away, voters are weighing candidates and issues across a broad electoral battlefield that includes key county-levelcounties contests.to watch.
Some voters are adding artificial-intelligence chatbots to their election research. NPR reported that voters are using tools such as ChatGPT to review races, compare candidates, investigate down-ballot contests and examine viral claims. One West Virginia voter described spending hours discussing his ballot and political priorities with ChatGPT, which said it could help compare evidence and candidates using criteria he selected but should not tell him how to vote.
About half of U.S. adults use AI-powered chatbots, and 42% of users employ them to search for information, according to Pew Research Center figures cited by NPR. Researchers caution that chatbots can be subtly persuasive, reinforce a user’s existing leanings and increase confidence without necessarily improving understanding. Rafael Batista, a Johns Hopkins University fellow who studies AI’s influence, also noted that companies generally do not disclose how commercial models are trained or how they select sources, making potential biases difficult to assess.
Written by a language model from the sources above, then checked by a second model that may only cut, attribute or correct. How it works →