Montana’s AI Election-Deepfake Law Remains Enacted. A Federal Court Has Blocked Enforcement Against Two Challengers.
Montana’s election-deepfake statute is still on the books. But a federal court has temporarily barred state officials from enforcing it against the two plaintiffs in a First Amendment challenge—and expressly declined to issue statewide relief.
Montana’s SB 25, enacted as Chapter 541 in 2025, is an election-deepfake disclosure law. The statute does not simply announce a general prohibition on “deepfakes.” It creates a defined disclosure-and-enforcement regime for specified election and electioneering communications involving a covered deepfake of an on-ballot candidate or political party within 60 days of the initiation of voting in the qualifying election.
That regime now sits alongside an important litigation limit. On September 16, Judge Susan P. Watters of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana granted a preliminary injunction in Accountability in State Government v. Knudsen, No. 6:26-cv-00038-SPW. The court found that the plaintiffs, Accountability in State Government and Dan Bartel, had shown a likelihood of success on their First Amendment challenge and met the other requirements for preliminary relief.
The central qualification is the one most likely to get lost in a headline: the injunction protects the named plaintiffs. It does not invalidate SB 25 statewide or prevent Montana from enforcing it against everyone else.
What SB 25 regulates
The statute defines “AI-generated content” as content substantially created or modified by generative artificial intelligence in a way that materially alters its meaning or significance to a reasonable person; minimal edits that do not materially alter meaning or significance are excluded. Its definition of “deepfake” centers on AI-generated or synthetic media depicting a candidate or political party, made with intent to injure reputation or deceive a voter, that appears to show speech or conduct that did not occur or conveys a fundamentally different impression to a reasonable person.
For a covered election or electioneering communication within the statutory 60-day period, SB 25 generally requires a disclosure if a person working in an official election capacity pays for or sponsors the production, creation, or distribution of a covered deepfake that the person knew or reasonably should have known was covered. The required disclosure states:
“This _____ (image/audio/video/multimedia) has been significantly edited by artificial intelligence and depicts speech or conduct that falsely appears to be authentic or truthful.”
The law specifies how that disclosure must appear in different media. For example, it sets particular rules for print, video, internet graphics or text, and audio. It also includes stated exceptions, including for certain bona fide news reporting, broadcasters in specified circumstances, satire or parody, platforms that demonstrate their disclaimer requirements satisfy the statute’s disclosure conditions and that they supplied those requirements to the purchaser, and interactive computer or telecommunications services carrying third-party content.
Those details matter. A law described casually as an election-deepfake “ban” may operate very differently from a disclosure statute with definitions, timing triggers, medium-specific requirements, and exceptions. Any coverage or compliance analysis has to begin with the actual statutory elements rather than the label alone.
The preliminary injunction is deliberately plaintiff-specific
The court’s filed order grants preliminary relief, not final judgment. At this stage, Judge Watters concluded that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a likelihood of success on their First Amendment claim and had satisfied the other preliminary-injunction factors.
But the court rejected the plaintiffs’ request for a universal injunction. It reasoned that the requested relief had to be evaluated under the Supreme Court’s then-controlling limits on injunctions benefiting nonparties, discussed in the order through Trump v. CASA, Inc. The court stated that it lacked authority to issue a universal injunction prohibiting enforcement “globally against anyone impacted,” and held that the relief “must be limited to the named Plaintiffs.”
The operative language is correspondingly narrow. The order enjoins Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Lewis and Clark County Attorney Kevin Downs, and Commissioner of Political Practices Chris Gallus from reviewing, investigating, prosecuting, adjudicating, or enforcing the Act against the named plaintiffs.
That distinction is substantive, not technical. The ruling does not establish that the statute is finally unconstitutional on its face, and it does not create a general safe harbor for campaigns, committees, platforms, or other speakers who are not parties to the case. The statute remains enacted; the order leaves the nonparty enforcement posture to later proceedings and facts not resolved by this injunction.
Why the scope matters for election-speech planning
The decision illustrates a recurring problem in AI-election-law coverage: an early constitutional ruling can have real practical importance without changing the rule for every speaker.
For the named plaintiffs, the preliminary injunction bars the identified officials from using the statute against them while the case proceeds. For others, analysis still begins with SB 25’s text: whether a planned communication falls within the statute’s definitions, timing window, disclosure rule, or an enumerated exception. The order does not extend its protection to nonparties or resolve whether their communications satisfy the statute’s coverage requirements or exceptions.
That does not mean the injunction is unimportant. The court’s likelihood-of-success finding flags constitutional questions that may shape the merits case, future enforcement decisions, and challenges to similar laws. It also shows why the remedy question can be as consequential as the merits question: even where a court sees a serious First Amendment issue, the scope of preliminary relief may turn on who is before the court and what relief the court believes it can lawfully award.
The litigation remains active
The public docket shows that the case has continued beyond the September 16 order. It lists a preliminary pretrial conference order on September 29, a joint case-management plan on October 27, and a transcript-order form on October 28. A docket check on October 29 identified no later merits decision or appeal entry.
The next meaningful development could be a merits ruling, a change in the injunction’s status, an appeal-related filing, or a record that clarifies how the statutory regime is being applied outside this dispute. Until then, the durable takeaway is precise: Montana’s SB 25 is still enacted, and the federal court’s preliminary order protects these plaintiffs—not the public at large.
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