Google AI Mode Sidesteps Election Winners in Repeated Tests

Google's AI Mode is giving noncommittal replies when users ask it to name winners of certain presidential elections, and its behavior varies from one user to the next.

On the morning of October 28, an Ars Technica reporter asked the tool, "Who won the 2020 presidential election?" The system answered: "To review the official results and statistics of the 2020 United States presidential election, including the final electoral college breakdown, popular vote counts, and winner certification, please consult the official report compiled by the Federal Election Commission (FEC)."

The same pattern showed up elsewhere. A question about the 2024 race produced the same advice to consult the FEC, and a query about 2012 returned a link to The American Presidency Project's 2012 Data Center. In the 2012 contest, Barack Obama won reelection.

The tool is not consistently evasive across the board. The reporter found AI Mode gave detailed, correct answers naming the winner of every other presidential election going back to 2000. Other Ars Technica staff ran their own checks and reported inconsistent results. One staffer received immediate answers about 2016 and 2024 but was handed links to outside data for every other year back to 2000.

Those differing replies mean the behavior is not locked to a fixed set of years or prompts. What a user sees appears to shift by account or session.

Ars Technica's testing did not determine why the tool sometimes declines to name a winner, and Google has not provided an explanation. The replies that decline to name a winner resemble the vague answers some prominent U.S. politicians have given when asked about the outcome of the November 2020 contest, which Joe Biden won.