On Safe and Usable Chatbots for Promoting Voter Participation
Bharath Muppasani, Vishal Pallagani, Kausik Lakkaraju, Shuge Lei,, Biplav Srivastava, Brett Robertson, Andrea Hickerson, Vignesh Narayanan

TL;DR
This paper presents a personalized, transparent chatbot system designed to promote voter participation among vulnerable groups, addressing concerns about misinformation and hacking while enhancing election information accessibility.
Contribution
It introduces a novel chatbot system that personalizes official election information for vulnerable voters, with prototype implementation and initial focus group evaluation.
Findings
Prototype effectively delivers personalized election info
Focus group shows increased voter engagement
System addresses misinformation concerns
Abstract
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.
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Taxonomy
TopicsAI in Service Interactions
