United States - Missouri - AI in Elections (SB 509)

Overview

Missouri Senate Bill 509 (SB 509) introduces new legal provisions concerning the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in election-related communications within the state. The bill aims to ensure transparency and prevent deception in political discourse by regulating the use of AI-generated content in political advertisements, electioneering communications, and other political advertisements. It mandates clear disclaimers for media created using generative AI under specific conditions and establishes penalties for non-compliance.

Definitions

The bill defines key terms to clarify its scope.

• Generative artificial intelligence or generative AI refers to "a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, emulate the structure and characteristics of input data in order to generate derived synthetic content including images, videos, audio, text, and other multi-media digital content."
• Metadata is defined as "structural or descriptive information about data such as content, format, source, rights, accuracy, provenance, periodicity, granularity, publisher or responsible party, contact information, method of collection, and other relevant descriptions of the data."

Governance and Institutional Framework

The bill was introduced in the Missouri Senate by Senator Nicola. Following its second reading on February 27, 2025, it was referred to the Senate Local Government, Elections and Pensions Committee for further review.

Key Focus Areas

The primary focus of SB 509 is to regulate the use of generative AI in political communications. It mandates that a disclaimer must be included in any political advertisement, electioneering communication, or other political advertisement that contains images, video, audio, graphics, or other digital content created, in whole or in part, with generative AI, under the following conditions:

• It appears to depict a real person performing an action that did not actually occur.
• It manipulates the voice or actions of a candidate to show the candidate, audibly or visually, doing or saying something that the candidate did not do or say.
• It was created with the intent to injure a candidate or to deceive voters regarding an election or ballot issue.

The bill also requires that the metadata of such communications include disclosure information about the AI tool used and the creation date, ensuring these disclosures are as permanent as technically possible.

Implementation Framework

The bill specifies how the required disclaimers must be displayed across various media types:

• Printed communication: The disclaimer must be in bold font with a font size of at least twelve points.
• Television or video communication: The disclaimer must be clearly readable throughout the communication and occupy at least four percent of the vertical picture height.
• Internet public communication (text or graphic components): The disclaimer shall be viewable without the user taking any action and be large enough to be clearly readable.
• Audio component of a communication: The disclaimer shall be at least three seconds in length and spoken in a clearly audible and intelligible manner at either the beginning or the end of the audio component of the communication.
• Graphic communication: The disclaimer shall be large enough to be clearly readable but no less than four percent of the vertical height of the communication.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The bill does not explicitly detail a framework for monitoring and evaluation beyond the enforcement provisions. Compliance would likely be assessed through investigations triggered by complaints or observed violations.

Penalties, Liability, and Appeals

Any person identified as paying for, sponsoring, or approving media covered by this act who fails to include the required disclaimer is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor, in addition to any other civil penalties provided by law.

Relationship to Other Instruments

The bill proposes to amend Chapter 130 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 130.165, to address the use of artificial intelligence in elections.

International Alignment

This bill is a state-level legislative effort within the United States and does not address international alignment.

Implementation Timeline

Date	Milestone	Status
2025-01-08	Introduced in the Senate	Completed
2025-02-27	Second Read and Referred to S Local Government, Elections and Pensions Committee	Completed

Sources and References

Source	Type
SB509 - Creates new provisions relating to the use of artificial intelligence in elections - Missouri Senate	Parliament/Legislature
SENATE BILL NO. 509 (Full Text)	Parliament/Legislature
Missouri House Passes Legislation to Spearhead Rising Deepfake Media: A First for Electronic Communications in Missouri (HBs 2628 & 2603)	Parliament/Legislature