| Abstract: | The fast adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) into online communication systems has already dramatically changed the electoral political arena. During the 2024 General Elections in India, AI- assisted social media sites were used to spread synthetic media, such as deep fakes, AI-generated political propaganda and automated misinformation campaigns in an extremely fast manner. Although the macro-level effects of AI-driven disinformation have been studied on the national level, scanty literature has concentrated on small electoral settings and individual voters, especially first-time voters in semi-urban and rural districts where the degree of political and online awareness remains in its infancy. The paper applies an interdisciplinary approach of deep fakes, digital propaganda, and electoral justice to place local electoral experiences in more theoretical frames on democratic resilience and algorithmic distortion. The study is based on a qualitative case-study design with the assistance of secondary literature, policy articles, and regional digital media discussion and analysis to investigate how AI-based misinformation impacts political awareness, political perception, institutional trust, and voting behaviour among new voters. The results indicate that first-time voters are especially vulnerable to AI-mediated distortions of the narrative because of the lack of digital literacy, excessive use of social media, and the amplification of peer’s networks on the WhatsApp and Facebook platforms (Anadi, 2024). The paper finds that regulatory change, electoral supervision systems, and systematic interventions of digital literacy are urgently needed to protect democratic participation within the changing digital Indian public domain. The study focuses one examining the impact of AI generated electoral misinformation on first-time Rajasthan voters. The results indicate that first-time voters, especially young people, are still distinctly susceptible to manipulation of narratives by AI. This vulnerability is fuelled by a so-called perfect storm of conditions: low digital literacy, the innate reliance on social media as a news source, and the exponential growth of as –called viral content in closed peer groups on applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook. Finally, the paper highlights that there is a pressing need to have strong regulatory lines, better electoral checks and balances, and community-based digital literacy training to ensure democratic integrity in an Indian fast-stabilizing digital citizenry |
