Vikki Goodwin, the Democrat running for lieutenant governor, has accused her opponent of violating a state law restricting the use of deepfake political ads, according to a notarized affidavit she filed Saturday with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.
Republican incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick shared two AI-generated ads featuring Goodwin’s likeness — one on Sept. 5 and one on Sept. 12. The first depicted Goodwin and other Texas Democrats spoiling the fun at college football games. Goodwin’s likeness is depicted at a University of Texas Longhorns game as she proposes new taxes, including a soda tax, a brisket tax, a happiness tax and a “nostalgia surcharge.”
“They should be chanting ‘taxes’ instead!” the digitally generated Goodwin is shown saying as the crowd chants for the home team.
In her affidavit, Goodwin argues that Patrick violated a 2019 law making it a criminal offense to fabricate and distribute a deceptive video with intent to influence an election.
The law prohibits a deepfake video from being produced or distributed within 30 days of an election. For the purposes of the law, a deepfake video is defined as a “video, created with the intent to deceive, that appears to depict a real person performing an action that did not occur in reality.”
“I did not personally do or say the things depicted in the video; although the ‘person’ in the video appears to be me, it was not actually me,” Goodwin stated in her affidavit, according to Austin TV station KXAN. “Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted the video with the intent to deceive Texans, injure a candidate, or influence the result of an election.”
Recent polls show Goodwin and Patrick in a close race.
Patrick campaign spokesman Allen Blakemore told the New York Times on Saturday that the videos were “an obvious parody.” He also told the newspaper that the videos weren’t distributed within 30 days of an election.
“I have much greater faith in the voters than Ms. Goodwin does,” Blakemore said in his statement to the Houston Chronicle. “The video in question is an obvious parody produced to entertain. No reasonable person could view it any other way … . Ms. Goodwin’s complaint is simply a page from the failed Democratic playbook: carping and whining when they are financially and morally bankrupt.”
The ads were posted on Patrick’s social media accounts during the first two weeks of September — more than 30 days before Election Day, which falls on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
However, in the affidavit, Goodwin argued that the clips violated the law because they remained online within 30 days of the start of early voting. Goodwin filed the report on Sept. 19 — exactly 30 days before the start of early voting.
Even though Blakemore dismissed Goodwin’s affidavit to the media, the videos have since been removed from all of Patrick’s social media platforms.
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