Paul Allen, the founder of Ancestry.com and now founder and CEO of SOAR and Citizen Portal, argues that most of the conversation about AI and democracy is aimed at the wrong target. Deepfakes and disinformation get the attention, but Paul makes the opposite case: AI can give ordinary citizens a better view of their government than they have ever had.
In this episode of the Campaign Trend Podcast, Eric Wilson and Paul start with the parallel to genealogy. Ancestry.com took an enormous archive of unread records and made it personal, with search tools and a "hint engine" that told users what to look at next. Paul wants to do the same for city council meetings, ordinances, and public records, an archive almost no one reads and one that fewer reporters cover every year.
Paul describes Freedom Portal, a planned companion effort that would use AI to analyze the laws, permits, and regulations standing between residents and things like buying a home or starting a business. He estimates that 25 to 40 percent of the cost of a new home comes from bureaucracy rather than labor and materials. Eric pushes back with a devil's advocate view: regulations are usually well-intentioned, and once added, they rarely go away.
The conversation then turns to local journalism, which Eric frames as a business model problem rather than a demand problem. Paul describes a "newspaper business in a box," in which AI agents handle transcription and drafting while a single local journalist supplies context and judgment.
Eric also asks whether elected officials will welcome all this sunlight. Paul challenges the premise, arguing most public servants will embrace transparency, especially if AI can lighten the load of records requests. He points to performance data from Polco, including budget simulations that let residents see the projected effects of their choices.
The takeaway for practitioners is that the information gap between insiders and everyone else at the local level is narrowing, and campaigns will increasingly face voters who arrive informed.