US States Push Deepfake Regulation for Elections
US states are increasingly taking action to regulate AI-generated content in political campaigns ahead of the 2026 election cycle. Missouri lawmakers have introduced bills that would mandate disclaimers for AI in political advertising and criminalize the creation of malicious deepfakes. The legislative push reflects growing concern over AI's potential to manipulate elections.
- By January 2026, 28 states had enacted laws to regulate AI-generated deepfakes in political communications. These laws often mandate disclaimers on manipulated media and restrict its distribution within a certain timeframe before an election, ranging from 30 to 120 days. - The Missouri bill, SB 509, requires a clear disclaimer on political ads using generative AI to depict a real person doing or saying something that did not happen. Violation of this requirement would be classified as a class A misdemeanor. - While states have been active, federal legislation has moved slowly. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has confirmed that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies to AI-generated voices in robocalls, a direct response to an incident involving a fake robocall from President Biden in New Hampshire. - The legislative push is a reaction to both domestic and international incidents where deepfakes were used to influence voters. Examples include AI-generated audio of a candidate in Slovakia discussing election rigging and a fake video used by Turkish President Erdoğan to link an opponent to terrorist groups. - Some states, like Texas and Minnesota, have gone beyond disclosure requirements to ban the distribution of deceptive deepfakes close to an election with the intent to injure a candidate or influence the outcome. - The European Union's AI Act takes a different approach, focusing on transparency by requiring that AI-generated content, including deepfakes, be clearly labeled as such. The act also encourages the use of technologies like digital watermarking to ensure the origin of the content can be traced. - Legal challenges to these state laws have emerged, citing First Amendment concerns over free speech. In California, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against one of the state's election deepfake laws.
