As Americans prepare to vote in the 2026 midterm elections, some are turning to artificial intelligence chatbots for information about candidates and policies. But research and recent examples suggest that tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini can provide outdated or fabricated answers, draw on partisan sources and misstate important election details.
Chatbots are increasingly used for election information
About 50 percent of U.S. adults surveyed recently said they had used an AI chatbot at least once. According to Pew Research, 8 percent of respondents said they had used these tools to find information about candidates and policies ahead of the midterm elections.
However, much of the information produced by chatbots can be outdated, hallucinatory or drawn from partisan websites. Even supposedly nonpartisan systems, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, have proved inadequate when answering questions about the midterm elections.
Just last week, Google’s AI Mode refused to provide the results of the 2020 election. Google’s Gemini chatbot also said that the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania was November 3, rather than the actual deadline of October 27, according to a Forum AI survey.
Election answers frequently contain factual errors
According to Forum AI research, almost 40 percent of election-related responses from mainstream chatbots contained at least one factual error. In August, when researchers asked why voters should support North Carolina Congressman Don Davis, Claude produced an answer that confused him with a “former school superintendent” who has the same name.
Google and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment. OpenAI shared a blog post outlining the company’s approach to election safeguards ahead of the 2026 election.
Chatbots often cite partisan “pink slime” websites
Part of the problem is that chatbots depend on increasingly unreliable online information sources. An investigation by NewsGuard found that mainstream chatbots cited so-called “pink slime” websites nearly 50 percent of the time when asked about candidates or policies connected to the midterm elections.
Although these sites may resemble mainstream news outlets, “pink slime” websites are funded by political or ideological groups or individuals. More such sites are appearing ahead of the midterm elections as chatbot use grows.
NewsGuard found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT was the worst offender in its analysis, citing “pink slime” websites in more than 70 percent of searches. xAI’s Grok performed best, citing those sites in 30 percent of searches.
Experts warn that AI can amplify election misinformation
“I don’t think most Americans are ready to navigate the election in the age of consumer AI,” Nina Jankowitz, executive director of the American Sunlight Project and former disinformation czar in the Biden administration, told WIRED.
“One of the problems is that executives and companies are actually over-promising about AI’s capabilities. AI has to get this information from somewhere, and often that source is not very good. And because of its predictive capabilities, AI often makes up stories even when it doesn’t know the answer.”
Source: www.wired.com