Elections are the most important phases of governance. After all, this is when the people of a country will decide who will govern the nation hence forward. Naturally, in the period preceding the elections, all the potential candidates from different political parties will pack the period with massive campaigns.
How can one perceive the trend of the people and their opinions about the electorate? But it is important, although there always has been a shortage of tools to gauge the people’s sentiment.
With the inception of the concept of artificial intelligence, political election campaigns have become a great show of technological advancements. Whether it’s the large-scale analysis of the collected data or scrutiny and analysis of social media data — you will have it all with the implementation of AI and ML.
It’s time to use the technology that can make the election process safer, better, and more convenient for all. Above all, security will be tight to ensure that the election result is the same as what the country’s people want.
#1. Effective Targeting by Political Parties
The lack of information becomes the sole reason for wrong decisions during voting. Machine learning and artificial intelligence can help engage more voters in election activities.
· The machine learning algorithms’ statistical procedures can successfully identify the voters’ demographic data patterns.
· Analysis of the online behavior of the voters will include the pattern of data consumption, relationships, and practices of activities on social media.
· The AI-powered applications can create unique behavioral and psychographic user profiles. Based on these segregations, political parties can target their campaigns to individual voters.
The process helps persuade a specific group of voters to vote in their favor.
US elections show that the approach is highly effective, but its ethicality is still a hot topic for government bodies.
#2. Benefitting the voters
Artificial intelligence is capable of gathering information about the general opinions of voters. You can apply micro-targeting campaigns to educate the voters on various political issues. Unless a voter knows the scenario in the current-day politics (which is quite common), the person won’t be able to decide on the right candidate for the future.
· It’s possible to deliver the information to the voters depending on the residential area.
· AI tools can help when the voter determines what the candidates have to say about the country’s economic condition. Such personalized information will help the voters to know the candidates better.
Thus, artificial intelligence can help voters make correct decisions about future candidates.
· Automated Journalism: AI and machine learning are developing at high speed and are close to competing with human resources.
Now AI news anchors can deliver the news and provide the required information in the most human way possible.
Read: Automating Audio-Visual Content Production by AI
#3. Control the disinformation, hate speeches, and fake news
Before the elections, you may notice inflammatory trolls on social media. But such interference can destabilize the entire structure of the government. Of course, there are several reasons behind such internal and intentional trolls.
Social media networks use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and remove foreign trolls who try to misinform prospective voters.
Election commissions across the globe have started considering digitalization to conduct fair elections. For instance, During the elections in 2019, India’s Election Commission demanded for the first time that social media platforms monitor election-related content from candidates and parties.
· It is further possible to harness Artificial intelligence to predict the turnout of the voters. Such availability of more information to the election officials will help them to prepare adequately for the day. And the elections will be user-friendly and quick for the citizens.
#4. Sentiment analysis
The AI technique that has earned considerable popularity during election activities is the “sentiment analysis.” It’s the best way to perceive human emotions that the voters will express through their social media posts. Use of such sentiment analyzer can be experienced here.
It is the best opportunity for the political parties and candidates to assess the public opinion about each candidate. Based on the data, they can concentrate on the areas they need to focus on if they want to win the election.
AI helps make behavioral maps of the voters by analyzing their activities on digital media. The SWOT analysis of their campaigns becomes easy.
#5. Improving Vote Collection Systems
The entire election system needs rejuvenation from time-to-time. Using the latest technologies developed based on artificial intelligence is important.
AI and machine learning are ushering in a new era in politics. The voting system can improve if politicians and election workers utilize the latest tools and technology. Conducting the elections will be easier if the election workers know how to work efficiently to improve the functions.
#7. AI to Counter Biased Media Content
News channels with large viewership may also favor a particular political party and broadcast biased news to the voters. There are tendencies toward biased reporting in general, but especially in the context of elections.
AI can assist in spotting biased reporting and provide alternate perspectives.
This alleged media bias results from specific word and subject choices (“framing”) that cast the content in a particular manner.
Because there is so much news in digital media, it is no longer practical to monitor online material by human observation and evaluation. Organizations and agencies rely on automated assessments to quickly detect and evaluate media bias and, if necessary, to serve as the foundation for counter-offers.
AI bots can thwart inaccurate and misleading reporting. In the context of elections and general political opinion formation, they can automatically distribute verified material and, if necessary, interactively respond to inquiries.
Risks, Threats, and Disadvantages
· Disinformation: The manipulation of individual voting decisions by targeted dishonest campaigns is a risk of using AI in elections. AI-based social bots are frequently employed to boost deceitful propaganda efforts simultaneously broadcast live and in the media.
Automated social media bots, for instance, might spread their posts across multiple accounts at once or displace themselves by acting human.
· Deepfakes: Deepfakes are artificial intelligence-generated images, videos, or audio files that straddle the line between fact and fiction. With the allegedly compromising photograph material, public figures can therefore be defamed or even blackmailed.
The goal may be to impact political affairs or to have the individuals in question stop participating in politics.
Adopting numerous legal, technical, and ethical agreements can mitigate any risk associated with using AI systems.
Conclusion
We depend on AI support for orientation and to make meaningful use of technology advancements.
However, a democratic society is not dependent on leaving this task to private-commercial platform operators solely or political parties according to their purposes.
For this reason, a sound design and a well-founded assessment of possible negative side effects of AI technology innovations is a must, especially in governance.
Powerful actors and politicians have a special responsibility to create safe and ethical frameworks for a welfare-oriented development of governance bodies and conduct elections fairly.
