On Safe and Usable Chatbots for Promoting Voter Participation
This addresses the challenge of increasing voter turnout in specific demographics, though it is incremental as it applies existing chatbot technology to a new domain.
The paper tackles the problem of using chatbots to promote voter participation among vulnerable groups like senior citizens and first-time voters, by building a system that personalizes official election information, and reports initial evaluation in a focus group.
Chatbots, or bots for short, are multi-modal collaborative assistants that can help people complete useful tasks. Usually, when chatbots are referenced in connection with elections, they often draw negative reactions due to the fear of mis-information and hacking. Instead, in this paper, we explore how chatbots may be used to promote voter participation in vulnerable segments of society like senior citizens and first-time voters. In particular, we build a system that amplifies official information while personalizing it to users' unique needs transparently. We discuss its design, build prototypes with frequently asked questions (FAQ) election information for two US states that are low on an ease-of-voting scale, and report on its initial evaluation in a focus group. Our approach can be a win-win for voters, election agencies trying to fulfill their mandate and democracy at large.