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Law / United States / Massachusetts

An Act to Protect Against Election Misinformation (H.5093)

H.5093, 194th General Court (2025-2026)

An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.

Obligation class
Prohibition
Audit expectation
none
Setting the rule reaches
Elections

What it requires

  • Do not distribute deceptive audio or visual media about a candidate or an election within 90 days of that election, where the media is intended to injure a candidate's reputation, deceive a voter, disrupt the election's safety or operation, or mislead voters about voting dates, methods, deadlines, certification, or an endorsement.
  • Media outlets that air or report on such content while acknowledging authenticity questions, websites, newspapers, periodicals, and satire or parody would be exempt.

These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.

In the frameworks

NIST AI RMF
  • MAP 3.3Targeted application scope is specified and documented based on the system’s capability, established context, and AI system categorization.
NIST AI 600-1
MIT mitigations Draft
  • 1.5Safety Decision Frameworks
  • 3.3Access Management
FINOS AIGF
ETSI EN 304 223
  • 5.1.2-1Business need and security risks written down and assessed before deciding to build an AI system.
  • 5.1.4-5End-users told which uses of the system are prohibited.

Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law

Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.

What it makes you log

Logging duty

New section 70 of chapter 56 would prohibit distributing, with actual malice and within 90 days of an election, materially deceptive audio or visual media or a materially deceptive election-related communication, and would give a depicted candidate, a depicted person or the attorney general injunctive relief and the candidate or person damages. It would not require anyone to create, keep or produce on demand any record of a distribution.

Kind
None
As of

What this law does

Drafted with AI

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page. How this site is made

Research summary

Legal information, not legal advice. This is LexLint's own research summary of a public legal source, and it creates no attorney-client relationship. For decisions that matter, consult qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. About LexLint

This bill has not been enacted, so read the following as what it would require rather than a current duty.

As passed by the House, it would prohibit distributing deceptive audio or visual media within 90 days of an election, covering media depicting a candidate with intent to injure their reputation or deceive a voter, media intended to disrupt the safety or regular operation of an election, and media intended to mislead voters about voting dates, methods, or deadlines, election certification, or a false endorsement.

A candidate whose voice or likeness appears in such media may seek injunctive relief or bring an action for damages and attorney's fees against the distributing party. Exemptions cover media outlets that air or report on the content while acknowledging authenticity questions, websites, newspapers, magazines and periodicals, and satire and parody. Originally filed as H.76, the House Committee on Ways and Means reported a new draft as H.5093.

The redraft passed the House 154 to 3 on . It was then referred to the Senate Committee on Ways and Means on .

When LexLint raises it

When your app profile says your app generates audio with AI, generates images with AI or generates video with AI.

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