NC Senate gives initial approval to bill affecting mail-in voting, AI and local elections

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – The state Senate gave initial approval to a bill Tuesday with significant changes to the state’s elections, as Democrats accused Republicans of a “blatant power grab” when it comes to local elections.

The bill has a variety of provisions that also affect mail-in voting and the use of artificial intelligence in political ads.

The passed its second reading on 26-18 party-line vote. It’ll require an additional vote before it goes to the House.

The legislation aims to address the use of generative AI to deceive or mislead voters by requiring disclosure of the use of that technology in political advertisements. The proliferation of “deepfakes” and deceptive videos is a chief concern to state election officials.

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the NC State Board of Elections, recently said she worries about someone using her voice to create false messaging about the date of the election or other key information.

“I don’t know that there’s any state law that can 100 percent address that, but we need to try. We need to try to figure out a way to keep this kind of deceptive information from affecting our elections,” said Ann Webb, policy director of Common Cause North Carolina.

The disclosure would be required when an ad is created entirely or in part with generative AI and: depicts a real person doing something that didn’t actually happen; was created to injure a candidate or deceive voters regarding a ballot issue; or provides false or misleading information to a voter.

Webb said she thinks the provision also should apply to digital ads.

Failing to comply would be considered a misdemeanor. That part of the law would go into effect July 1. However, Sen. Warren Daniel (R-Burke) said conversations are still underway with Republicans in the House, so the General Assembly may not take final action on the legislation until next year.

Republicans also want to move forward with requiring the state conduct signature matching of mail-in ballots to try to verify people are who they say they are.

They previously authorized a 10-county pilot study, which still is not done. NC State Board of Elections spokesman Pat Gannon said Tuesday the agency has contracted with BizTech Solutions to work with the counties on the pilot.

The technology aims to match someone’s signature on their absentee ballot envelope with the signature on file with the state.

Sen. Daniel (R-Burke) said even though the results of that pilot are still not available, he still wants to move forward with implementation. It would not take effect until 2025, meaning the first use would occur in lower-turnout local elections that year.

“Rather than kind of wait on the bureaucratic churn of that process, we’re going to go ahead and authorize that to be done in 2025 and beyond,” he said. “Here we are this long in the future waiting on the data from the Board of Elections. Probably most of us thought this would be implemented for this election.”

North Carolina already requires people to either have two witnesses attest that someone is indeed the person who filled out a mail-in ballot or a notary public.

Sen. Dan Blue (D-Wake) questioned the need for the additional verification. He asked, “And you’re letting a machine that’s unproven basically say that that notary lied?”

Democrats objected to another part of the bill that would give the General Assembly greater ability to determine how county and city leaders are elected.

“It is one of the more blatant power grabs that we’ve seen,” said Sen. Julie Mayfield (D-Buncombe), adding that she thinks Republicans are likely to target heavily Democratic communities to potentially redraw local districts.

Sen. Daniel said Democrats aren’t being consistent in their arguments for proportional representation.

The bill now goes to the House. Senate leaders say they don’t plan to hold any more voting sessions after this week regardless of whether Republicans can reach a compromise on issues like changes to the state budget.

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