Testimony for the Virginia Senate Privileges and Elections Committee in Opposition to VA HB 2479, Artificial Intelligence Campaign Disclosures

Testimony from:

Chris McIsaac, Governance Fellow, R Street Institute

Testimony in Opposition to VA HB 2479, “Political campaign advertisements; synthetic media, penalty.”

February 11, 2025

Virginia Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections

Chairman Rouse and members of the committee:

My name is Chris McIsaac, and I conduct research on election reform for the R Street Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization. Our mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government across a variety of policy areas, including the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and election policy. This is why House Bill 2479 is of particular interest.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence are impacting all aspects of modern life, including the way elections are administered and campaigns are run.^[1] These advances have raised fears that technology will be used to deceive voters at scale and erode trust in elections, though the actual impacts on the 2024 election were minimal.^[2] HB 2479 seeks to mitigate these potential harms by requiring disclosure when “synthetic media” is used for deceptive purposes in political campaign advertisements. While well-intentioned, HB 2479 is problematic because it places a burden on political speech, expands the government’s role in mediating political disputes that should be resolved by the campaigns, and provides voters with a false sense of security around the authenticity of political information.

At their core, disclosure requirements place a burden on free speech. While the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted their use in the context of certain campaign advertisements—namely, campaign finance—the disclosure requirements in HB 2479 are fundamentally different. Here, the disclosure is related to the substance of the advertisement itself, not just the financial backers. ^[3] By putting forward a new content-based restriction on speech, HB 2479 sets Virginia up for a possible legal challenge on First Amendment grounds.

The bill also grants the Virginia State Board of Election substantial authority in resolving disputes between campaigns. Specifically, HB 2479 requires the Board to determine whether a campaign advertisement violated the disclosure requirement. This means the board will need to make technical determinations around whether an image or audio was manipulated and judgment calls over whether the altered content would cause voters to be deceived. These are highly subjective decisions, and none of this will happen quickly as the board is required to provide a 10-day notice before a hearing. A far simpler remedy is for politicians and their supporters to correct the record when their opponents lie. The competitive dynamics of campaigns already incentivize such a response and countering bad speech with good speech is far more likely to be more effective than relying on a slow-moving state agency to act.

Finally, even under an optimistic scenario where campaigns broadly comply with the requirements of HB 2479, there could be unintended consequences that elevate the salience of false information.^[4] For example, the theory behind requiring a disclosure is that it provides a signal to the public that the content should be viewed with a certain level of skepticism because it’s been manipulated in some fashion. If that mindset takes hold, the reverse holds that content without the disclosure can be trusted because it has not been manipulated. However, the vast majority of political speech will remain beyond the reach of any federal or state regulation, which sets the stage for truly false information—generated with or without AI— to gain additional traction. A better approach is for the government to let the public engage in free speech without imposing labeling requirements that could be counterproductive.

Overall, the push toward protecting the public from exposure to election related deceptions generated by “synthetic media” through greater transparency is well meaning but unnecessary. For these reasons, we urge the committee to reject HB 2479.

Thank you for your time,

Chris McIsaac

Fellow, Governance

R Street Institute

cmcisaac@rstreet.org