Significant enthusiasm around AI uptake has been witnessed across societies globally. The electoral process -- the time, place and manner of elections within democratic nations -- has been among those very rare sectors in which AI has not penetrated much. Electoral management bodies in many countries have recently started exploring and deliberating over the use of AI in the electoral process. In this paper, we consider five representative avenues within the core electoral process which have potential for AI usage, and map the challenges involved in using AI within them. These five avenues are: voter list maintenance, determining polling booth locations, polling booth protection processes, voter authentication and video monitoring of elections. Within each of these avenues, we lay down the context, illustrate current or potential usage of AI, and discuss extant or potential ramifications of AI usage, and potential directions for mitigating risks while considering AI usage. We believe that the scant current usage of AI within electoral processes provides a very rare opportunity, that of being able to deliberate on the risks and mitigation possibilities, prior to real and widespread AI deployment. This paper is an attempt to map the horizons of risks and opportunities in using AI within the electoral processes and to help shape the debate around the topic.

翻译：全球社会对人工智能的接纳展现出极大的热情。然而，在民主国家的选举流程——包括选举的时间、地点及具体方式——这一领域，人工智能至今渗透甚微。近期，许多国家的选举管理机构开始探索并审议在选举过程中使用人工智能的可能性。本文聚焦于核心选举流程中五个具有人工智能应用潜力的代表性方面，并分析在其中使用人工智能所面临的挑战。这五个方面包括：选民名单维护、投票站选址、投票站保护流程、选民身份验证以及选举视频监控。针对每个方面，我们阐述了背景，展示了当前或潜在的人工智能使用方式，讨论了人工智能使用所引发的或可能引发的后果，并提出了在考虑使用人工智能时降低风险的潜在方向。我们认为，人工智能在选举流程中的当前应用甚少，这恰恰提供了一个极其罕见的机会——即在人工智能真正大规模部署之前，能够审慎探讨其风险与缓解措施。本文旨在勾勒人工智能在选举流程中应用的风险与机遇前景，并推动围绕该议题的讨论。