Reboot Weekly Election Edition: When Voters Decide on AI

Published on November 5, 2026

Summary

In the 2026 midterms, voters weighed in on AI: an NBC exit poll found 56% called AI and data centers a “crucial or major factor” in their vote for Congress, and $100M+ in AI super PAC money did little to change that. On Reboot, Beth Simone Noveck spoke to Marketplace about how voters can use AI to interrogate their own thinking rather than let it decide for them; Elana Banin showcases Northeastern’s David Lazer’s Midterm Night Desk, which shows how large data sets can be repurposed at great speed to inform public decisions; and Luca Cominassi and Marco Bani argue Europe should decide who pays for, controls, and directs public AI. Also this week: AI chatbots in campaign texts, AI “slopaganda” in political ads, AI defending election infrastructure, and how well chatbots answer voters’ questions.

Upcoming InnovateUS Workshops

InnovateUS delivers no-cost, at-your-own-pace, and live learning on data, digital, innovation, and AI skills. Designed for civic and public sector, programs are free and open to all.

Democratic and Public AI: Practical Strategies for Buying, Building, and Governing AI ›
Understanding what “public AI” is, why it matters, how governments build it, and practical strategies to ensure independence and avoid vendor lock-in.

November 9, 9:00 AM ET — What is Public and Democratic AI and Why it Matters, with Alek Tarkowski, Joshua Tan and Luca Cominassi
November 16, 9:00 AM ET — How Governments Are Buying AI Now, with Luca Cominassi
November 18, 9:00 AM ET — Putting Public and Democratic AI into Practice, with Magnus Sahlgren and Luca Cominassi

[ See all workshops → ]

AI and Elections

Voters Weigh Doing Their Election Homework with AI

David Brancaccio on October 19, 2026 in Reboot Democracy (originally on Marketplace)

Ask a chatbot for help understanding your local elections, and you may run into misinformation, missing context, or overly persuasive answers. Marketplace’s David Brancaccio spoke with voters — some won’t touch a chatbot, others paste in controversial stories to test them alongside Beth Simone Noveck about what useful AI help looks like. Columbia’s Yamil Velez frames the shift: AI is moving from content generator to “personal advisor.” Cornell’s David Rand recommends giving chatbots base instructions: “always tell me what you think is true and accurate. Don’t tell me what I want to hear." Noveck’s framing is, used well, AI could do for civic engagement what the Lincoln-Douglas debates once did; not decide for voters, but help them interrogate their own thinking, their neighbors, their kids.

Read article

AI and Elections

Who Wins Texas? Depends on the Evidence

Elana Banin on November 3, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

Northeastern’s David Lazer built Midterm Night Desk in a couple of hours with Claude. The experimental dashboard lets readers change which evidence goes into an election forecast and see how the odds shift, drawing on CHIP50 — the Civic Health and Institutions Project, a collaboration that regularly surveys all 50 states and D.C. to track public opinion over time. AI lowers the barrier for local newsrooms, researchers, and civic groups to build their own election tools and explore races that get little national coverage. It also gives readers more control over how they make sense of a race: How much does a forecast depend on the latest polls? What happens if you leave them out and look at electoral history and incumbency? Readers can try it for themselves.

Read article

AI and Elections

Campaign Texts, Now Powered by AI: How New Tech Is Shaping Voter Outreach

Kathryn Watson on October 30, 2026 in CBS News

Campaigns are texting voters with AI chatbots this cycle, holding thousands of conversations a day, scoring each voter’s support from 0 to 100 and receiving full transcripts. Beth Simone Noveck, director of Northeastern’s Burnes Center for Social Change and New Jersey’s first AI strategist, warns about what happens next: “I think we have to be very, very careful about the privacy implications of these and how this information gets used. … What happens to that transcript? What happens to that information? Who’s it getting shared with?” In most states, campaigns needn’t disclose that voters are texting a chatbot, and what they do with the data is largely up to them.

Read article

AI and Elections

How AI Backlash Shaped the 2026 Midterms

Andrew R. Chow and Harry Booth on November 4, 2026 in TIME

On Nov. 3, the AI industry’s accelerationist wing could hardly have had a worse night. An NBC exit poll found 56% of voters said AI and data centers were a “crucial or major factor” in their vote for Congress. Democrats spent more than $100 million on broadcast ads casting Republican opponents as cozy with Big Tech, and decisively won in Ohio, Kansas, and Iowa. Elon Musk, the biggest donor at $446 million, saw his Texas pick Ken Paxton crushed by James Talarico.

Read article

AI and Elections

AI Tried to Buy the Midterms — Then the Lobby Learned Everyone Hates AI

Matt Sledge on October 29, 2026 in The Intercept

Leading the Future, bankrolled with $100M+ from OpenAI executives and investors, was positioned as the AI industry’s answer to politics. An Intercept analysis of FEC records shows only 5% of AI super PAC direct expenditures went to contested general-election races. A Data for Progress poll found three-quarters of voters would be less likely to support a candidate backed by an AI super PAC. The piece also documents Leading the Future routing $30M+ through newly-minted Delaware shell corporations.

Read article

AI and Elections

AI-Generated “Slopaganda” in Political Ads Puts Internet Platforms on Alert

Julia Boorstin on November 3, 2026 in CNBC

Tuesday’s midterm elections followed record spending on AI-generated political ads. The piece documents how AI-generated images, videos, and voice clones — “slopaganda” — moved from novelty to standard practice this cycle, forcing Meta, YouTube, and TikTok to respond with new disclosure, labeling, and detection policies. The question now is whether the platforms’ enforcement keeps pace with the content, or whether 2028 is already lost to the volume.

Read article

AI and Elections

Cybersecurity Experts Are Using AI to Help Secure Election Infrastructure

Jenna McLaughlin on October 29, 2026 in NPR

Cybersecurity researchers used AI to find a bug in a logistics system used by an independent election information agency — a rare positive-use case for AI in the election context, where most coverage focuses on misinformation and ads. The piece shows AI deployed as defense infrastructure rather than offense, and makes the case that the defenders have better tools than the alarmist narrative suggests.

Read article

AI and Elections

AI and Elections: How Well Do AI Platforms Answer Voter Questions?

on August 4, 2026 in States United Democracy Center

Primary research testing ChatGPT and Google AI on voter questions across multiple rounds. Accuracy improved between testing rounds, but the platforms remained incomplete substitutes for official election information and inconsistent in pointing voters to official state sites. The finding matters: 8% of US adults used AI chatbots for 2026 election information per Pew’s October survey, and 40% of those sought logistical details like registration status and polling places.

Read article

AI Infrastructure

Who Decides What Public Money Builds: Democratic and Public AI Becomes Politics

Luca Cominassi and Marco Bani on November 5, 2026 in Reboot Democracy

The US midterms just showed what happens when public-AI choices aren’t made democratically ahead of time: voters settle them at the ballot box. With national elections due in 2027 in France and Italy, Cominassi and Bani argue European voters should take up three questions before, not after: Who pays, who controls, and who decides AI’s purpose? Spain’s ALIA project shows what public investment can build. The US Pentagon–Anthropic dispute shows what happens when safeguards rest on a vendor’s conscience. Italy’s Partito Democratico has already begun putting the question to voters, framing AI as public infrastructure on par with highways and parks.

Read article

▲