This initiative, part of Smart City activities, is focused on how AI/ technology can help drive voter participation, with a focus on senior citizens and young first-time voters. Join the global Google group on the topic - Credible Elections with AI Lead Technologies and also see the related project page on Collaborative Assistants ("chatbots"). 

Our collaborations are in: Computing, Journalism, Security, Law and Political Sciences, and involves concerned researchers, non-profits, government bodies and companies.

Dataset and Tool

1. Dataset about 

   1. Common and frequently asked election questions from around the world, and when available, answers. [Github]
      Kausik Lakkaraju, Sara Elizabeth Jones, Bharath Muppasani and Biplav Srivastava, A Dataset of Generalizable Election-Related Questions for AI Tools Compiled from Leading Global Democracies, AAAI 2024 Workshop on AI and Credible Elections [AI, election data] [paper, slides]

   2. Voter FAQs for 50 US states [Data releasing soon]
      Vipula Rawte, Deja N Scott, Gaurav Kumar, Aishneet Juneja, Bharat Sowrya Yaddanapalli, Biplav Srivastava, Do Voters Get the Information They Want? Understanding Authentic Voter FAQs in the US and How to Improve for Informed Electoral Participation, On Arxiv at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.15273, 2024 [NLP,  Elections]

2.  ElectionBot-SC: We have been working on how to safely collate, disseminate and make comprehensible authentic (election) information to users (voters) starting with official sources (like SC Election Commission). ElectionBot-SC is our chatbot to help voters in 2024 US elections in South Carolina (SC) and conduct IRB-approved studies. [Tool and Study Webpage]

Book

• PROMISE – PROMoting aI’s Safe usage for Elections, Editors - Biplav Srivastava, Anita Nikolich, Andrea Hickerson, Tarmo Koppel, 2024, Springer Nature (forthcoming). [Details]

Papers

1. Biplav Srivastava, A Vision for Reinventing Credible Elections with Artificial Intelligence, Thirty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-25), Philadelphia, USA, Blue Sky paper, 2025. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13700.1344; (Paper link) [Election, AI Role, Official Information]

2. Vipula Rawte, Deja N Scott, Gaurav Kumar, Aishneet Juneja, Bharat Sowrya Yaddanapalli, Biplav Srivastava, Do Voters Get the Information They Want? Understanding Authentic Voter FAQs in the US and How to Improve for Informed Electoral Participation, On Arxiv at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.15273, 2024 [NLP,  Elections]

3. Bharath Muppasani, Kausik Lakkaraju, Nitin Gupta, Vansh Nagpal, Sara Jones, Biplav Srivastava
   ElectionBot-SC: A Tool to Understand and Compare Chatbot Behavior for Safe Election Information in South Carolina, 2024. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14188.37761 [Paper] 

4. Kausik Lakkaraju, Sara Elizabeth Jones, Bharath Muppasani and Biplav Srivastava, A Dataset of Generalizable Election-Related Questions for AI Tools Compiled from Leading Global Democracies, AAAI 2024 Workshop on AI and Credible Elections [paper, slides]

5. Bharath Muppasani, Vishal Pallagani, Kausik Lakkaraju, Shuge Lei, Biplav Srivastava, Brett Robertson, Andrea Hickerson, Vignesh Narayanan, On Safe and Usable Chatbots for Promoting Voter Participation, AI Magazine; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aaai.12109, 2023 [Chatbot, Voter Engagement]

6. Vignesh Narayanan, Brett W. Robertson, Andrea Hickerson, Biplav Srivastava and Bryant W. Smith, Securing social media for seniors from information attacks: Modeling, detecting, intervening, and communicating risks, The Third IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Machine Intelligence (IEEE CogMI), 2021. [Cyberspace, Seniors]  

Panels and Talks

1. Panelist at the  Centre for AI: Social and Digital Innovation (Brunel University of London) event titled “Exploring the Influence of AI on the Electoral Process in the US and the UK” on Nov 13, 2024. 

2. Panelist at the University of South Carolina School of Law’s symposium titled “AI and Elections” on Oct 4, 2024.  Audience of 70+ from government, university and business (Post). 

3. Panel discussion on  titled "AI, Technology, Elections, and Democracy" at League of Women Voter South Carolina (LWV SC)'s 2024 State Council: Building Our Power meeting on 4th May 2024 at Columbia, SC. Audience of 50+ volunteers from across the LWV SC wards. 

4. Talk titled "AI and Elections: We didn't start the fire? .. But we may be able to help douse it!" at Rotary Club, Columbia, SC on 17 April, 2024. Audience of 40 professionals. (Post) 

Workshops

1. Third Workshop on AI for Credible Elections: A Call to Action, in conjunction with 38th Conference of Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-24), Biplav Srivastava, Anita Nikolich, Andrea Hickerson, Tarmo Koppel, Chris Dawes, Sachindra Joshi, Ponnaguram Kumaraguru, Feb 2024. [Summary]

2. Second Workshop on AI for Credible Elections: A Call to Action, in conjunction with 37th Conference of Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-23), Biplav Srivastava, Anita Nikolich, Andrea Hickerson, Tarmo Koppel, Chris Dawes, Sachindra Joshi, Feb 2023. [Summary]

3. Workshop on AI for Credible Elections: A Call to Action, in conjunction with Thirty-fifth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2021), Biplav Srivastava, Anita Nikolich, Huan Liu, Natwar Modani, Tarmo Koppel, Dec 2021. [Summary]