Deepfake Disclosure Laws Are Failing Their First Real Test
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We were told the answer to political deepfakes was disclosure. Label the synthetic ad, the argument went, and voters will do the rest. The 2026 midterms are the first national test of that theory, and so far it is failing.
The Wesleyan Media Project, which has tracked political advertising for years, has so far found at least 164 ads this cycle that were generated or enhanced with AI, part of an estimated $80 million or more spent on AI ads. About 69% of those ads did not disclose that AI was used. Eighty percent were sponsored by Republican candidates or pro-Republican groups, 11% by pro-Democratic sponsors, and 9% by independents and issue campaigns.
AI ads identified: 164 · Wesleyan Media Project
No AI disclosure: 69% · of those ads
AI ad spending: $80M+ · this cycle, estimated
States with deepfake laws: 31 · NCSL / Public Citizen count
The finding that should worry legislators came from Travis Ridout, the project’s co-director. He matched the ads against the National Conference of State Legislatures’ list of state laws. In states with no AI disclosure law, 32% of AI ads carried a disclaimer anyway. In states that require one, only 29% did. That is not a law working badly. It is a law with no measurable effect at all.
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<h3>164 AI-made political ads, one square each</h3>
<p class="sub">The Wesleyan Media Project's count of ads generated or enhanced with AI so far this cycle. Switch the view.</p>
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<div class="src">Source: Wesleyan Media Project, as reported by the Associated Press, 25 September 2026. Square counts are derived from the published percentages (69% undisclosed; 80% / 11% / 9% by sponsor) and rounded, so treat them as approximate.</div>
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The label is technically there
Even the ads that do comply show how weak compliance can be. In March the National Republican Senatorial Committee released an 85-second AI-generated video of James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, appearing to read and react to his own old social media posts. An “AI GENERATED” notice appears on screen for almost the whole ad. It is also small, faint and tucked into a bottom corner, and critics pointed out that it is easy to miss.
In Georgia, Rep. Mike Collins’s Senate campaign released a deepfake of Sen. Jon Ossoff during last fall’s government shutdown in which a synthetic Ossoff says, “I just voted to keep the government shut down.” It carried a small on-screen disclaimer saying the video was AI-generated, which was enough to keep it within Georgia and federal law.
This is where “disclosure” ends up when nobody defines it. A label in six-point type, in a corner, on a video that people scroll past in two seconds, satisfies the letter of the law and none of its purpose. Campaigns have worked this out. The people who wrote the laws apparently haven’t.
type: bar
title: States regulating deepfakes in political messaging
2025: 28
2026: 31
Why the patchwork doesn’t hold
The number of states with political deepfake laws rose from 28 to 31 this year, with Maine, Tennessee and Vermont added. (Ballotpedia, counting more broadly, puts it at 33.) The laws don’t agree with each other. Tennessee’s covers only deepfakes that impersonate candidates. Others cover any “materially deceptive” media. Most rely on private lawsuits or slow election-board complaints. In August, New York’s Democratic Party filed a complaint with the state Board of Elections over Republican Bruce Blakeman’s use of AI in his ads. Complaints like that are usually decided long after the votes are counted.
Meanwhile the Federal Election Commission, the agency that should set a national floor for federal races, has not written a rule specifically for AI in political ads. There is still no federal law on the subject.
What a disclosure law needs to actually work
Disclosure isn’t a bad idea. What we have now is disclosure without standards, without deadlines and without penalties. Fixing it would take four things:
- Specify the label. Minimum size, contrast, duration and position, like the rules broadcasters already follow for “paid for by” notices. A disclosure that most viewers never see shouldn’t count.
- Fast relief. Courts or election boards should be able to order a non-compliant ad taken down within days, not months. In an election, a remedy after the fact is no remedy.
- Put the penalty on the sponsor. Fines should scale with ad spending and fall on the committee that paid for the ad, not on the vendor that made it.
- Provenance by default. Platforms that sell political ads should require content credentials (the C2PA standard or similar) on AI-generated media, so that the label travels with the file rather than depending on the campaign’s honesty.
The deeper problem is cultural, and no statute fully fixes it. When party committees and serious Senate campaigns treat synthetic video of their opponents as routine, deepfakes stop being a fringe threat and become an accepted campaign tactic. The laws were written to catch trolls. What they are actually up against is professional campaign operations. Unless they get enforcement mechanisms that match that, “AI GENERATED” will remain what it is today: the smallest text on the screen.
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