Voters beware: 25 states restrict AI in elections. SC is in the other half.

COLUMBIA — South Carolina enters the 2026 campaign season without any state laws preventing political candidates from using artificial intelligence to make unfounded attacks against their opponents.

Twenty-five states now require disclosures when using AI in campaign materials or banned its use altogether, with a number of them passing their laws ahead of the 2024 election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In the last presidential election cycle, GOP hopeful Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign shared AI-generated images of President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one-time chief medical adviser to the president, who is loathed by much of Trump’s base. And in New Hampshire, robocalls impersonating former President Joe Biden discouraged voters from casting their ballots in the state’s pre-South Carolina presidential primary.

The man responsible for spreading the calls was acquitted of charges related to voter suppression that could have sent him to prison for decades, according to The Associated Press.

South Carolina’s already-contentious gubernatorial race officially launched Monday, as the first two Republicans announced their bids.

Other Republicans expected to enter the fray include U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, which could create two wide-open races for Congress too. Other statewide races on the ballot in 2026 include U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s contested re-election bid.

Yet, in a state with a decades-old reputation for mud-slinging campaigns, there are no legal restrictions on using AI to take the political hijinks to a whole new level.

“We have seen a lot of meddling in our elections to help influence people,” said state Rep. Jermaine Johnson.

The Columbia Democrat has introduced legislation the last two years that would ban using AI in the three months before Election Day, unless the campaign material discloses that the image, video, or audio “has been manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence.”

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Without that disclosure, if the campaign ads look or sound like the other person and intend to damage their reputation, the targeted candidate could seek damages in court. Violators could also be sentenced to up to 90 days in jail and fined $500, according to the latest proposal Johnson pre-filed last December for this year’s session.

As it stands, both the state Election Commission and Ethics Commission told the SC Daily Gazette there is little to limit the use of AI in campaign material.

AI in an SC election

In last year’s election for chief prosecutor of the 9th Circuit, made up of Berkeley and Charleston counties, incumbent Solicitor Scarlett Wilson used AI to mimic the voice of her opponent, former employee David Osborne, in a campaign ad.

A 30-second ad on local television and posted to Facebook last October included an AI-generated voice that was supposed to sound like Osborne reading emails he sent to Wilson, The Post and Courier reported.

“I think what made me comfortable is it was verbatim. It was his words” Wilson told the Gazette.

But Palmetto State Democrats were outraged.

Christale Spain, chair of the state Democratic Party, called for the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate, saying the emails were official communication between two employees. She contended that Wilson needed to file a public records request to be able to use the emails for political purposes.

Lachlan McIntosh, Osborne’s campaign consultant, called the ad, which used pieces of emails sent six months apart, “exceedingly unfair.” If the prosecutor had done that in court, he added, “the case would have been thrown out.”

SLED did not respond when asked if it investigated the video. Regardless, Wilson defeated Osborne by 14 ½ points to keep the job she’s held since 2008.

Wilson said the outcry by Democrats brought more attention to the ad, working in her favor because it used his words.

Now in her fifth term, Wilson told the SC Daily Gazette as long as the claims being made are accurate, she has no issue with AI in campaigns.

However, she said, some guardrails are needed.

“It could be very dangerous,” she said. “I think I’d be fine with limits on it. As long as words and visuals are accurate … I think that should be fair game.”

When Johnson saw the advertisement, he said he went to colleagues and said, “I told you so.”

Neither of his bills has received any traction.

The latest was sent to the Judiciary Committee on the first day of session in January but has yet to receive a hearing. Since 2025 was the first of a two-year session, the proposal could still be heard next year without being re-filed.

When asked about the bill, House Judiciary Chairman Weston Newton said his committee received 469 bills last year and just didn’t have the time to properly vet them all.

“We’re in a new era. We’re in a new frontier regarding AI,” said the Bluffton Republican.

He pointed to bills criminalizing the use of AI to create child pornography — whether using actual or computer-generated photos of children. Another law passed this year criminalizes the nonconsensual sharing of intimate images, to include fake images made through AI.

“The laws on the book years ago didn’t contemplate anything about AI,” Newton said. “So, there’s a whole host of issues we’re now beginning to talk about.”

Rep. Jeff Bradley, the head of the House regulatory and technology advisory committee, thinks Johnson’s proposal will likely get heard next year.

A federal ban?

But there’s a chance come January that the Legislature will no longer be able to consider Johnson’s bill, or any legislation with AI for that matter.

Included in the 1,000-plus page “Big Beautiful Bill” pushed by President Donald Trump that narrowly passed the House is a 10-year ban on passing regulations surrounding AI.

“No state or political subdivision thereof may enforce, during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, any law or regulation of that State or a political subdivision thereof limiting, restricting or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce,” the bill reads.

The proposal has exceptions for bills that remove legal impediments to AI, streamline its use or do not impose “substantiative design, performance, data-handling, documentation, civil liability, taxation” or fees on the rapidly evolving technology.

Attorneys general, including South Carolina’s Alan Wilson, and state legislators across the country have spoken out against the moratorium that has caused GOP in-fighting on Capitol Hill, according to reports.

South Carolina Rep. Brandon Guffey was the top signature on a letter signed by more than 260-state lawmakers urging Congress to remove the ban from the 1,000-plus page proposal.

The Rock Hill Republican testified in front of the U.S. Senate in February on a bill that required social media platforms to take down manipulated images and was recognized by Trump when he signed it into law.

Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Walhalla, penned an op-ed with California state legislator Jacqui Irwin in Governing, an outlet geared towards government officials, also cautioning the potential impact of stripping power from legislators to regulate AI.

Alexander and Irwin are the leaders of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Privacy.

“The states are leading the way because our constituents have asked us to guard against the worst abuses and threats of AI,” the piece said. “Each of these laws — and hundreds more like them — were passed by legislatures on a broadly bipartisan basis. Yet each is now under threat of invalidation by a little-noticed provision in the reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. House.”

The mega-bill is under debate in the Senate, so the moratorium could be amended — or removed entirely. But if passed, it could eliminate the chance of regulating AI when it comes to South Carolina’s elections until 2035.

Lynn Teague with the League of Women Voters’ state chapter, said the AI ban frightens her because the technology is rapidly growing. And when it comes to voters, it’s only going to get easier to misinform them.

“The potential for misrepresentation, outright deception, with AI is so high,” Teague said. “We all know by the time something is out there in the public, correcting it becomes very hard.”

“An original lie spreads faster than the truth,” she added.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated with Solicitor Scarlett Wilson’s correct winning margin in November.