Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

What happens when voters cede their ballots to AI agents?

Robotic hand holding a ballot
Alfieri/Getty Images

Frazier is an assistant professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University. Starting this summer, he will serve as a Tarbell fellow.

With the supposed goal of diversifying the electorate and achieving more representative results, State Y introduces “VoteGPT.” This artificial intelligence agent studies your social media profiles, your tax returns and your streaming accounts to develop a “CivicU.” This artificial clone would use that information to serve as your democratic proxy.


When an election rolls around, State Y grants you the option of having your CivicU fill in the ballot on your behalf — there’s no need to study the issues, learn about the candidates or even pick up a pencil. Surely CivicU will vote in your best interest. In fact, it may even vote “better” than you would, based on its objective consideration of which candidates and ballot measures would improve your well-being.

In the first election with CivicU, there’s nearly 90 percent “voter” turnout with AI agents casting about a third of all votes. Soon after Election Day, a losing candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives challenges the constitutionality of votes cast by CivicU.

A robust legal debate ensues. State Y points to its constitutional authority to decide the manner of elections and notes the absence of any federal law banning AI agents in an electoral context. What’s more, State Y reviews historical records that make clear that proxy voting — appointing someone to vote on your behalf — was a relatively common practice in colonial America. The candidate counters that surely the Founders could not have anticipated and would not have tolerated a vote cast without active involvement by the voter in question. They also note that proxy voting, while permissible in some countries like the United Kingdom, has not been adopted by the United States. The developers of VoteGPT file an amicus brief arguing that a voter’s CivicU is indistinguishable from the voter — they are one and the same, so this is more akin to someone Googling how they should vote than someone delegating their voting power.

Who wins and why?

This may seem like an implausible scenario, but the rapid development of AI as well as its use in electoral contexts suggests otherwise. In fact, current trends indicate that AI will only come to play a larger role in whether and how people participate in democracy. In short, it is a matter of when and not if certain partisan interests will leverage AI agents to bolster the odds of their electoral success.

Though proponents of AI agents might claim such efforts reflect democratic ideals such as a more representative electorate, excessive use of such agents (like allowing them to cast votes on behalf of users) may actually cause the opposite result — decreasing the legitimacy of our elections and sowing distrust in our institutions.

Before CivicU or something like it becomes a reality, we need to proactively clarify what limits exist in the Constitution with respect to agentic voting. My own interpretation is that the Constitution prohibits the tallying of any vote not explicitly cast by a human. Though such a finding may seem obvious to some, it is important to stress that a human must always be “in the loop” when it comes to formal democratic activities. The development of any alternative norm — i.e. allowing AI agents to serve as our proxies in government affairs — promises to undermine our democratic autonomy and stability.

Read More

Could Trump’s campaign against the media come back to bite conservatives?

US President Donald Trump reacts next to Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk, after speaking at the public memorial service for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on September 21, 2025.

(Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Could Trump’s campaign against the media come back to bite conservatives?

In the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’sapparently temporary— suspension from late-night TV, a (tragically small) number of prominent conservatives and Republicans have taken exception to the Trump administration’s comfort with “jawboning” critics into submission.

Sen. Ted Cruz condemned the administration’s “mafioso behavior.” He warned that “going down this road, there will come a time when a Democrat wins again — wins the White House … they will silence us.” Cruz added during his Friday podcast. “They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly. And that is dangerous.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Congress Bill Spotlight: No Social Media at School Act

Rep. Angie Craig’s No Social Media at School Act would ban TikTok, Instagram & Snapchat during K-12 school hours. See what’s in the bill.

Getty Images, Daniel de la Hoz

Congress Bill Spotlight: No Social Media at School Act

Gen Z’s worst nightmare: TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat couldn’t be used during school hours.

What the bill does

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN2) introduced the No Social Media at School Act, which would require social media companies to use “geofencing” to block access to their products on K-12 school grounds during school hours.

Keep ReadingShow less
On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

New Orleans fights a facial recognition ordinance as residents warn of privacy risks, mass surveillance, and threats to immigrant communities.

Getty Images, PhanuwatNandee

On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

Every day, I ride my bike down my block in Milan, a tight-knit residential neighborhood in central New Orleans. And every day, a surveillance camera follows me down the block.

Despite the rosy rhetoric of pro-surveillance politicians and facial recognition vendors, that camera doesn’t make me safer. In fact, it puts everyone in New Orleans at risk.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Manosphere Is Bad for Boys and Worse for Democracy
a skeleton sitting at a desk with a laptop and keyboard
Photo by Growtika on Unsplash

The Manosphere Is Bad for Boys and Worse for Democracy

15-year-old Owen Cooper made history to become the youngest male to win an Emmy Award. In the Netflix series Adolescence, Owen plays the role of a 13-year-old schoolboy who is arrested after the murder of a girl in his school. As we follow the events leading up to the crime, the award-winning series forces us to confront legitimate insecurities that many teenage boys face, from lack of physical prowess to emotional disconnection from their fathers. It also exposes how easily young men, seeking comfort in their computers, can be pulled into online spaces that normalize misogyny and rage; a pipeline enabled by a failure of tech policy.

At the center of this danger lies the manosphere: a global network of influencers whose words can radicalize young men and channel their frustrations into violence. But this is more than a social crisis affecting some young men. It is a growing threat to the democratic values of equality and tolerance that keep us all safe.

Keep ReadingShow less