Open Access

Oluwabusayomi Oyewole

• A steady decline in voter turnout has been recorded in many democratic countries, with young people (i.e Gen Z and Millennials) identified as a significant portion of those who don’t vote. Research has shown that one of the reasons young people do not vote is a lack of information about the electoral process, candidates and policies. Studies have also shown that preferred information dissemination medium is aligned across age groups, with older people trusting old media such as newspapers and young people leaning towards new media such as social media. With the recent advancement in machine learning, natural language interface and popularity of conversational agents such as chatbots, a new subset of new media has emerged. This study aims to investigate if chatbots could be an efficient medium for young people to access electoral information. It does this by comparing it with a website, using the EU electoral page as a case study. Based on the content of the EU electoral webpage, a chatbot was designed, trained and deployed on Telegram. Participants were randomly divided into two experimental groups (chatbot and website) and asked to find a list of crucial information, interact with the medium and then respond to the System usability scale (SUS), and a perception questionnaire. Observed data and interview notes were also taken. Analysis of the experimental data, observed data and surveys demonstrated that chatbot as a tool is inefficient as an electoral information tool because of the limitation of chatbot when out of scope questions are asked and limitation in following conversation contexts which is crucial to conversations. However, it is rated as above average on usability and joy of use, but raises questions on trust and data protection. It is recommended that the study be performed again when there are more advances to natural language processing to see if its efficiency as an electoral information medium will improve. A longitudinal study is also recommended to see if there’s a direct impact of chatbots as a tool, on young people’s motivation to vote.