Federal Judge Enjoins Montana Election Deepfake Law, But Only for Two Plaintiffs

Federal Judge Enjoins Montana Election Deepfake Law, But Only for Two Plaintiffs

A federal judge in Helena preliminarily blocked Montana officials from enforcing the state's election deepfake law, but only against the two plaintiffs who sued. The statute remains on the books and enforceable against everyone else in Montana.

Information last verified on September 21, 2026.

Status: U.S. District Judge Susan P. Watters granted a preliminary injunction on September 16, 2026, barring Montana 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 named plaintiffs Accountability in State Government and Dan Bartel. This is not a final judgment and not a statewide or facial ruling striking the law down. Mont. Code Ann. sections 13-35-801 through 13-35-804 remain in effect and enforceable against every person and entity that is not a named plaintiff in this case, as of September 21, 2026.

Jurisdiction: This order was issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, Helena Division, and binds the named defendants only, in their official capacities, as to the two named plaintiffs. It concerns Montana state law, Senate Bill 25 (2025), codified at Mont. Code Ann. sections 13-35-801 to 13-35-804.

What Happened

In 2025, the Montana Legislature passed Senate Bill 25 to regulate deepfakes in election communications, citing concern that generative AI threatens free and fair elections. It was codified at Mont. Code Ann. sections 13-35-801 to 13-35-804 (the "Act"), restricting anyone working in an official election capacity from paying for or sponsoring a "deepfake" of a candidate or party within 60 days of the start of voting, subject to a disclosure safe harbor and exemptions.

The plaintiffs are Dan Bartel, a former state legislator, and his political committee, Accountability in State Government, which distributes mailers analyzing candidates' legislative records that combine real photographs with AI-generated imagery, including two mailers depicting candidates wearing pronoun pins and holding pride flags, and a third showing a candidate holding a gas pump spraying ten-dollar bills priced at "Arm" and "Leg." Two targeted candidates and another legislator filed administrative complaints, and Commissioner Gallus notified the plaintiffs that the complaints met the Act's screening requirements and ordered a response, which they filed on August 10, 2026. The court held a preliminary injunction hearing on August 21, 2026.

The day before that hearing, Gallus filed a declaration saying he would dismiss the three complaints because the mailers fell under the Act's satire or parody exemption. The court found this did not moot the case: the declaration did not bind Gallus's co-defendants, did not address the Act's private right of action, and did not disavow enforcement against the mailers the plaintiffs intend to distribute before the November 3, 2026 general election. Judge Watters issued her order on September 16, 2026, granting the injunction but limiting its scope to the named plaintiffs.

Why the Court Found the Law Viewpoint Based

The court first found the Act content based, since enforcement authorities must examine what a piece of media says to decide whether it depicts a "deepfake" at all. Montana's defendants conceded that point at oral argument.

The more consequential finding was viewpoint discrimination. The Act defines a "deepfake" as AI-generated content or synthetic media depicting a candidate or party "with the intent to injure the reputation of the candidate or party or otherwise deceive a voter." The court agreed with the plaintiffs that the first half of that definition singles out content by whether its message is critical or flattering: a synthetic image that praises a candidate falls outside the definition, while an equally synthetic image that criticizes the same candidate falls inside it. As the court put it, "the Act exposes speakers to penalties only when their content is injurious rather than uplifting."

That framework, the court found, mirrors viewpoint restrictions the Supreme Court has struck down before: Justice Kennedy's concurrence in Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218 (2017), analogized a similar law to one under which "public officials could be praised and not condemned," and Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U.S. 388 (2019), struck a trademark ban on "immoral" or "scandalous" marks on the same reasoning. The court also invoked the general rule against viewpoint discrimination from Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), and R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992), and rejected Montana's argument that the Act's trailing catchall for content that would "otherwise deceive a voter" made the law viewpoint neutral, reasoning that the catchall is a separate basis for liability that does not erase the viewpoint-based prong before it.

Applying strict scrutiny, the court accepted that Montana has a compelling interest in preserving election integrity, citing Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 4 (2006), quoting Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee, 489 U.S. 214, 231 (1989), but found the Act failed narrow tailoring. It pointed to less restrictive alternatives Montana's defendants never addressed: counterspeech, voter-education campaigns, existing tort remedies such as defamation, and Montana's own criminal statute against using force or undue influence to interfere with a voter's franchise. The court also rejected the argument that the Act's mandatory AI-disclosure requirement saved the law, distinguishing it from the sponsor-identification disclaimer upheld in Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010): unlike a disclaimer that identifies who paid for an ad, the Act forces a speaker to label their own content as inauthentic, which the court found altered the speech itself. On that record, the court held the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their First Amendment claim.

Why the Injunction Covers Only Two Plaintiffs

Even after finding the plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits, the court still had to decide how far the injunction could reach, and this is where the order's real news value sits. The plaintiffs asked the court to bar enforcement of the Act against anyone; Montana's defendants asked the court to limit relief to the named plaintiffs, citing Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025).

In CASA, the Supreme Court held that "universal" injunctions, meaning injunctions that "prohibit enforcement of a law or policy against anyone" rather than just the plaintiffs who sued, "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts" under the Judiciary Act of 1789. Examining equitable relief available at the nation's founding, the Court concluded "neither the universal injunction nor any analogous form of relief was available" then. District courts retain power to give the actual parties "complete relief," but relief "should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs."

The plaintiffs made three arguments against applying CASA here, and Judge Watters rejected each. First, that CASA concerned nationwide injunctions against federal enforcement, not a state statute; the court disagreed, noting CASA itself favorably cited Scott v. Donald, 165 U.S. 107 (1897), a state-law challenge in which the Supreme Court limited relief to "the parties named as plaintiff and defendants in the bill," and Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922 (1975), restricting an injunction against a municipal ordinance to "the particular federal plaintiffs." Second, that a First Amendment overbreadth claim is an exception to CASA; the court relied on HM Florida-ORL, LLC v. Governor of Florida, No. 23-12160, 2026 WL 2235960, at *4 (11th Cir. Aug. 4, 2026), which held that "the reasoning in CASA had nothing to do with a plaintiff's cause of action. Rather, it concerned the remedies authorized under the Judiciary Act." The court read other district courts' attempts to carve out a state-law exception, citing Welty v. Dunaway, 791 F. Supp. 3d 818 (M.D. Tenn. 2025), as finding no support in CASA, which "supports no such distinction." Third, that a request for declaratory relief distinguished the case from CASA; the court noted the CASA plaintiffs had also sought declaratory relief, and that CASA itself reached the Supreme Court at the preliminary injunction stage, "exactly the posture here."

The court concluded that giving the named plaintiffs complete relief did not require barring enforcement against anyone else, quoting CASA directly: "Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render [Plaintiffs'] relief any more complete." The order therefore enjoins Knudsen, Downs, and Gallus "from reviewing, investigating, prosecuting, adjudicating, or enforcing the Act against the named Plaintiffs." It reaches no other candidate, committee, or speaker in Montana, all of whom remain fully subject to the Act, including its civil remedies and tiered misdemeanor-to-felony enforcement path, unless and until a broader ruling is entered.

What the Law Actually Says

The injunction changes nothing about the statute's text. For a broader overview of state approaches to this kind of legislation, see recordinglaw.com's guide to deepfake laws by state, and for Montana's law specifically, see our Montana deepfake law page.

Mont. Code Ann. section 13-35-801 defines the key terms: "AI-generated content" is material substantially created or modified by generative AI that materially alters the meaning a reasonable person would take from it, excluding minimally edited or enhanced content. A "deepfake" is AI-generated content or synthetic media depicting a candidate or party with the intent to injure the candidate's or party's reputation, or that otherwise deceives a voter, and that either appears to show someone saying or doing something that did not occur, or gives a fundamentally different understanding of the person's conduct than the unaltered original.

Section 13-35-802 sets the operative prohibition: no one working in an official election capacity may pay for or sponsor a deepfake within 60 days before the start of voting, unless the content includes a disclosure stating it was significantly edited by AI and falsely appears authentic, meeting formatting requirements for font size, image height, on-screen duration, and audio length that vary by medium. The law separately exempts radio and television broadcasts of deepfakes within newscasts or paid advertisements, and content that constitutes satire or parody, without defining either term.

Sections 13-35-803 and 13-35-804 set out enforcement. Under section 803, an aggrieved candidate or party can sue for injunctive relief, with expedited proceedings on a showing of ongoing harm, and a prevailing plaintiff can recover costs, attorney fees, actual damages, and up to $10,000 in punitive damages, on a clear-and-convincing-evidence standard. Under section 804, complaints go to the Commissioner of Political Practices: a first sufficiency finding triggers civil penalties, a second is referred for misdemeanor prosecution (up to a $500 fine, up to 6 months in county jail, or both), and a third for felony prosecution (up to a $5,000 fine, up to 2 years in state prison, or both). Criminal prosecution does not preclude a parallel civil suit.

Montana's Act sits within a broader wave of state legislation responding to generative AI in political and personal contexts; readers researching that landscape may also find recordinglaw.com's overview of AI laws and its explainer on AI voice cloning laws useful, since several states regulate synthetic audio separately from synthetic images and video.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

Most coverage of this order will likely describe Montana's deepfake law as "blocked." That shorthand does a lot of unearned work. Judge Watters found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on a facial First Amendment challenge, meaning the defect she identified is in the statute's text and would in principle apply to anyone the statute reaches, while entering a remedy that reaches only the two plaintiffs who sued. A merits finding and a remedy are different questions, and CASA exists to keep them separate: a district court can conclude a law is likely unconstitutional across the board and still be barred from ordering that no one may enforce it against anyone.

That gap has a concrete consequence. Montana's Commissioner of Political Practices, county attorneys, and attorney general retain their statutory authority to receive complaints, make sufficiency findings, and refer matters for misdemeanor or felony prosecution under sections 13-35-803 and 13-35-804 against every candidate, committee, or individual other than Accountability in State Government and Dan Bartel. The order itself acknowledges that "the potential universe of individuals affected by Montana state laws extends to anyone under the state's jurisdiction," and shields only the two plaintiffs before it.

This is not unique to Montana or to deepfake law. It is the structural effect of CASA on First Amendment litigation generally: since 2025, a single district court challenge to a state statute, however strong on the merits, ordinarily produces relief scoped to the plaintiffs who brought it, not a statewide bar on enforcement, absent a class action or other vehicle for broader relief. Readers who see "law struck down" or "judge blocks law" headlines involving other states' statutes should look for the same distinction: does the order say the law is unenforceable against everyone, or does it name specific plaintiffs.

What Happens Next

This order resolves a motion for a preliminary injunction, an interlocutory ruling meant to preserve the status quo while the case proceeds; it is not a final judgment. The underlying lawsuit, Accountability in State Government v. Knudsen, No. CV 26-38-H-SPW, continues in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, and the likelihood-of-success finding reflects the preliminary standard and the current record only.

Commissioner Gallus has indicated the three original complaints against the plaintiffs will be formally dismissed, though the court noted the defendants had not shown that dismissal had actually occurred as of the order. Nothing prevents new complaints from being filed against the plaintiffs by other private parties, since Montana law allows any person to file one; any such complaint would now run into the injunction.

Readers tracking how this case, or Montana's deepfake law generally, might change should watch for further district court proceedings toward final judgment, any request by the defendants to reconsider or stay the order, a separate suit by a plaintiff who is not currently a party, or legislative amendment. None of those outcomes is predictable from this order, and this article will be updated if the posture changes.

This article summarizes a court order and Montana statutes for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws and litigation posture can change quickly; consult a licensed Montana attorney for advice about a specific situation.

Last updated: 2026-09-21. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-09-21.