OpenAI starts election ‘war room’ to monitor its products during midterm races

OpenAI is creating an “Election Operations Center” to monitor for misinformation and possible interference in the 2026 midterm elections.The “war room” effort, first reported by Politico, focuses on stamping out possible interference from its models acting in a rogue way or being used in a manner that violates its terms. The report comes as lawmakers and officials on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns about election interference in the 2026 midterms in different ways.Josh Lawson, OpenAI’s head of civic and strategic risk, will be leading the group of OpenAI employees as they head into Election Day on Tuesday. “We’ve put considerable effort in ensuring we help users get reliable voting information, combat misuse of our tools, and support election defenders,” Lawson said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner. “The Elections Operations Center builds on that years-long work, bringing our teams together to respond quickly to emerging issues and enforce our policies as people head to the polls.”Between the increasing number of AI-generated video advertisements, deepfake images, and voters using chatbots to gather information about elections, AI has played a bigger role in the 2026 midterm elections than in previous cycles.AI chatbots’ presence on major social media platforms has also expanded Americans’ access to the technology, as Sens. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) pointed out in a letter to social media CEOs. The two Democratic senators urged the heads of major social media companies to share how they are combating the spread of misinformation on their platforms.“Advances in artificial intelligence and chatbots are creating new opportunities for large-scale election mis- and disinformation by both foreign and domestic actors,” Padilla and Schiff wrote in their October letter.FTC SUBPOENAS OPENAI AND ANTHROPIC AS FEDERAL INVESTIGATION DEEPENS OVER AI SAFETY CONCERNSAlthough OpenAI was not included in that letter, the AI company is releasing this “Elections Operations Center” project this week to help combat the spread of misinformation. The company also publicly released election safeguard steps it was taking in May to ensure, for example, that its chatbots are spreading reliable information and not spitting out political advertisements.President Donald Trump and Republicans have also raised separate concerns about the potential for election interference in the midterms, as Trump has often raised voter fraud concerns about the U.S. election system.