Texans Grapple With AI Campaign Ads in the Final Days Before Election Day, and the State's Deepfake Rules Are Still Pending
Three days before Election Day, Texas voters are sorting real candidates from generated ones: AI-made versions of political rivals are running in campaign ads, the state's disclosure rules are still pending, and two of Texas's top Republicans have drawn criticism for deepfake ads of their own.
Texas voters heading into Tuesday's election are being asked to judge candidates — and, increasingly, to judge whether the candidate on their screen is real. Candidates are using AI tools and deepfake versions of their political rivals in campaign advertising, blurring the line between satire and disinformation and leaving voters concerned, KWBU reported Saturday.
The legal ground under those ads is unfinished. Texas currently allows deepfakes in political campaigns unless they are created and distributed within 30 days of an election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A Texas decision to require disclosure on certain political advertising, and to ban certain artificially generated media outright, is still pending, the NCSL outlined — which means the rules for the ads running this weekend are the old ones, written before the technology was common. For scale on how voters react, a London School of Economics study found nearly 40 percent of respondents in the United Kingdom considered the use of AI-generated materials for political campaigns unacceptable.
The criticism this cycle has reached the top of the Texas ticket. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton have both drawn criticism across social media for their use of deepfakes in political advertisements, KWBU reported. Patrick's campaign released ads featuring Representative Vikki Goodwin that she alleged were deepfakes that misrepresented her views to sway the election, according to Houston Public Media. Paxton's ad featured an AI-generated version of Representative James Talarico.
Neither campaign's response is in the coverage read this run, and this story does not supply one. What is on the record is the shape of the fight: an election three days away, a disclosure regime still pending, and a generation of campaign ads that Texas law has not yet caught up with. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
