Bilingual AI app helps Latinos figure out how to vote
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A national Latino civic engagement group is turning to an AI app to help voters cut through an increasingly complicated election system — in English or Spanish.
Why it matters: Nearly 39 million Hispanics can vote in this year's midterms, and their political loyalties are increasingly up for grabs.
- Hispanics have added 5.25 million eligible voters since 2022, more than any other racial or ethnic group, according to Pew Research Center.
- The Latino electorate remains highly fluid: About 1 in 7 Latino voters who backed Trump in 2024 now say they want Democrats to control Congress, according to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll.
How it works: Mi Familia en Acción launched Nubi last week, a bilingual AI-powered app that answers questions about voting, voter registration, citizenship and Know Your Rights information.
- Users can ask questions in English or Spanish about where and when to vote, early voting, mail ballots and registration.
- Nubi operates in all 50 states and can tailor information to the local or district level.
Unlike a general-purpose chatbot, Mi Familia en Acción president and CEO Héctor Sánchez Barba tells Axios that Nubi doesn't search the open internet for answers.
- The organization feeds it information from sources it considers reliable, with human review and guardrails around what the AI can answer.
- If Nubi doesn't have an answer, Sánchez said, it is designed to say so and direct the user to a trusted source or partner rather than invent a response.
State of play: Nubi represents a five-year effort to marry Mi Familia en Acción's traditional organizing with technology.
- The organization launched a more basic chatbot about two years ago before developing the current AI version.
- Mi Familia en Acción financed development itself, Sánchez said, though he declined to disclose the cost, calling it a "very big investment."
- The organization says it plans to keep updating Nubi as voting rules, court decisions and government policies change.
Zoom in: The goal is to turn a complicated search across election websites into a conversation.
- A voter could ask whether they're registered, whether they can vote by mail, where their polling place is or what early-voting options exist.
- Nubi then walks the user through basic questions before giving a locally specific answer.
- The tool is updated regularly and eventually could expand its answers on questions involving immigration enforcement or problems a voter encounters at a polling place.
What they're saying: "People don't need to be a constitutional lawyer to find information about how they need to vote," said Sánchez, adding that the goal is to put reliable information in one place.
- He stressed that Nubi is nonpartisan and doesn't recommend candidates or causes.
- Sánchez also said the technology won't replace door-knocking and other traditional organizing, but could extend civic information into rural or overlooked communities that organizers rarely reach.
Zoom out: Nubi arrives as Latino voters play an increasingly large — and less predictable — role in American elections.
- Pew projects Hispanics will account for 16% of eligible voters in 2026, nearly double their 9% share in 2006.
- Latino voters are also fragmenting into competing political identities rather than moving uniformly toward either party.
- In May, 52% of registered Latino voters surveyed in 17 competitive House districts said they were undecided or could change their minds.
