BALTIMORE — As artificial intelligence technology advances, creating convincing fake images and videos has become easier and faster, raising concerns about how this could impact Maryland's upcoming 2026 elections.
The technology's ability to deceive voters is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and political experts warn that fake content could influence election outcomes before voters have time to verify its authenticity.
"Political communication has always been at the forefront of a lot of technological communication since the first websites, through social media and so forth," said Daniel Trielli, assistant professor of media and democracy at the University of Maryland.
While attack ads are common during election season, the real concern emerges when AI is used to deliberately mislead voters.
"Where it gets really tricky is when that technology is used to actually deceive voters, to make voters believe something has happened that hasn't happened. That's where it gets tricky and in some places they have banned the use of this technology for those purposes," Trielli said.
Currently, 26 states have legislation regulating AI use in political advertisements, but Maryland is not among them. However, that could change soon.
"Maryland has not yet had that sort of legislation signed into law yet. In 2024, as well as 2025, during those legislative sessions they were introduced. There is no doubt in my mind that it will come up again in 2026," said Mileah Kromer, director of the UMBC Institute of Politics.
Investigation challenges
The verification process for fake content can take weeks or months, creating significant challenges during election cycles. A recent example involved a fake recording of a Baltimore County high school principal that appeared to show him making insensitive comments. Baltimore County police spent months investigating before clearing him of wrongdoing, but the damage to his reputation had already occurred, and he was transferred to a different school.
"I think over time people can eventually discern on whether that was fake or not, but when you're thinking about AI deep fakes that are coming out in the weeks or the days before an election, it takes a little bit of time for people to discern like what was real and what was not," Kromer said.
Trielli believes using AI-generated content in campaigns could backfire on candidates who employ these tactics.
"Do they want to support a candidate that uses these technologies in these ways, you know, the creation of these images is very easy and very fast. Do voters want to support candidates that take their communication so unseriously that they're willing to use these technologies to get a quick reaction? I think that's going to be part of people's calculations moving forward as well," Trielli said.
Maryland examples
The most prominent example of AI use in Maryland politics comes from the No Moore campaign, a social media account that launched in February calling itself a grassroots uprising against the Moore administration. Maryland Democrats have accused the campaign of using AI to create racist images targeting Governor Wes Moore.
We reached out to the No Moore campaign but have not heard back.
This controversy could motivate Democratic lawmakers in Annapolis to pursue stricter AI regulations to protect their fellow party member in the governor's office.
"You see, the No More campaign has used some images of Governor Wes Moore in advance of this, you know, this coming election cycle, so I would, I would be really surprised if you don't see another push for this legislation to come up in 2026. But in Maryland again would not be alone. They would join a majority of states who've already enacted or moved to enact this type of legislation," Kromer said.
Maryland lawmakers convene in January and could pass emergency legislation regulating AI use in campaigns with enough time to implement restrictions before the 2026 general election.
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