Testimony for the Virginia House Privileges and Elections Committee in Opposition to VA SB 775, Artificial Intelligence Campaign Disclosures
Testimony from:
Chris McIsaac, Governance Fellow, R Street Institute
Testimony in Opposition to VA SB 775, “Election offenses; dissemination of artificial audio or artificial visual media, etc.”
February 14, 2025
Virginia House Committee on Privileges and Elections
Chairwoman Price 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 Senate Bill 775 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] SB 775 seeks to mitigate these potential harms by requiring disclosure when “artificial audio or artificial visual media” is used to deceptively depict a political candidate engaging in speech or conduct that did not occur. While well-intentioned, SB 775 is problematic because it places an ongoing burden on political speech 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 SB 775 are fundamentally different. Here, the disclosure is related to the substance of the communication itself, not just the financial backers.[3] By putting forward a new content-based restriction on speech, SB 775 sets Virginia up for a possible legal challenge on First Amendment grounds.
The bill also fails to limit the application of the disclosure requirement to a fixed time period around the election. Instead, the disclosure requirement applies year-round, with the penalties increasing from a $50 fine most of the year to a Class 1 misdemeanor for violations that occur within 90 days before an election. Meanwhile, there are no time restrictions on when a candidate may seek an injunction preventing the dissemination of unlabeled artificial audio or visual media. In combination, these ongoing risks of legal action against unlabeled speech threaten the free exchange of ideas and robust political debate in Virginia.
Finally, even under an optimistic scenario where Virginians broadly comply with the requirements of SB 775, 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 “artificial audio or artificial visual media” through greater transparency is well meaning but unnecessary. For these reasons, we urge the committee to reject SB 775.
Thank you,
Chris McIsaac
Fellow, Governance
R Street Institute
cmcisaac@rstreet.org
[1]Chris McIsaac, “Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Elections,” R Street Policy Study No. 304, June 2024. https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FINAL-r-street-policy-study-no-304.pdf
[2]Chris McIsaac, “AI and the 2024 Election Part II: Many Uses and Minor Impacts,” R Street Institute, January 14, 2025. https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/ai-and-the-2024-election-part-iii-many-uses-and-minor-impacts/
[3] “Campaign Finance Law: Disclosure and Disclaimer Requirements for Political Campaign Advertising,” Congressional Research Service, Dec. 30, 2019. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11398
[4] Scott Babwah Brennen et al., “In Disclaimers We Trust: The Effectiveness of State- Required AI Disclaimers in Political Ads,” NYU Center on Technology Policy, October 8, 2024. https://techpolicynyu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CTP_In-Disclaimers-we-Trust_final.pdf