Republican legislative candidate Jennifer Carlson was approached by two members of her church this month asking why she was wearing a “she/her” pin in a photo they had seen. A few days later, at the bank, someone else asked her the same question.  But Carlson, who’s running to represent A msterdam-Churchill and part of Belgrade in the statehouse, has never worn a pin with pronouns. The image, which was featured on a campaign mailer opposing her candidacy by calling her “woke,” was based on a photograph of Carlson that had been doctored to depict her wearing the pin and holding a pride flag. “I didn’t know what to do,” Carlson said in an interview with Montana Free Press. The mailers, she said, are “complete lies.”  Carlson served in the Legislature during the 2021 and 2023 sessions, but lost her reelection bid in the 2024 Republican primary, when she said she was similarly targeted.  “I didn’t fight back, and I tried to take the high road and hope that people would not believe these attacks, but they do,” she said of her 2024 campaign.  This election cycle she again has a primary opponent, Randy Chamberlin, a businessman and former chairman of the Gallatin County Republican Party.    This election, Carlson is pushing back. On Monday, she filed a complaint with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices claiming that the mailers violate a law passed by the 2025 Legislature that bars political groups from using “deepfake” imagery without disclosing that it has been digitally altered. Photos of campaign mailers that candidates Jennifer Carlson and Eric Albus say have been digitally altered. Illustration: Stephanie Farmer, MTFP. Credit: Stephanie Farmer, MTFP The mailers were sent out by Accountability in State Government, a political action committee run by former Republican legislator Dan Bartel.  A nearly identical mailer sent by the same group features manipulated imagery of Rep. Eric Albus, R-Glasgow, who is also running in a contested primary for state Senate against Inverness resident Mark Wicks.  The campaign materials arrived in mailboxes along the Hi-Line and in Gallatin Valley earlier this month, and come at a time when Republican legislative primaries are as contentious as they’ve ever been, and doctored images are proliferating throughout national and state-level politics. Bartel did not respond to multiple requests for comment, so it is unclear if generative AI was used to create the images, but experts say the use of generative AI programs like ChatGPT to alter photos has become increasingly common in recent years, and has led to a proliferation of misleading content.  “People had access to tools like Photoshop, and it even goes back to selective editing, so we’ve seen this for a long time, but now it has really gotten to the point where people can really create these images [with the click of a button],” said Michael Spikes, a media literacy expert and professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.  The mailers carry an anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) message and accuse Carlson and Albus of joining “every Democrat in voting to give taxpayer-funded grants to organizations pushing woke nonsense.” The mailers are referencing favorable votes by both candidates on House Bill 9, a routine funding bill that supports cultural and arts projects with grants funded by earnings from the state’s coal trust. The biennial bill typically passes easily, and Bartel himself voted “yes” on its two key Senate floor votes in 2023. Albus said the people he has spoken to who received the mailers don’t believe the message or the images. They’re “completely disgusted” by the campaign tactics, he said.  Carlson has had a different experience. When she went to get her COPP complaint notarized at the bank, she said, the woman helping her said that before they had a chance to talk about the mailer she had been considering taking her Carlson campaign sign down. The two have known each other for 27 years, Carlson said.  Carlson explained the situation, at which point the notary asked her, “Well why are you wearing that button?” Ultimately, Carlson said she persuaded her that the mailer was inauthentic.  Carlson says she has “social conservative values.” One of her flagship achievements was passing a bill in 2021 that prohibits private businesses and government agencies from denying services based on vaccination status. Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor of information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said altered images erode trust at a time when people of all ideological persuasions already have a propensity to distrust politicians.  “When we start suspecting everything is AI-generated, we can’t trust anything we see,” he said in a phone interview.   Spikes said deepening distrust resulting from doctored content fosters cynicism and ultimately leads people to “become less civically engaged.”   Much of Accountability in State Government’s (ASG) funding has ties to educational freedom and school choice advocates, but that money was funneled through multiple entities before it arrived in Bartel’s hands. According to publicly available campaign finance records, most of ASG’s cash has come through two PACs: 1889 Project PAC and Montana Patriots. Those two outfits received large infusions from the Montana Senate Leadership PAC, whose treasurer is Montana Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell. Regier’s PAC received $60,000 from Rita Schreiber, president of the Educational Promise Foundation, who lists Helmville and California addresses online. Regier said that once the cash leaves his PAC, what’s done with it is “out of my hands,” but he isn’t shy about acknowledging the PAC’s goal of picking winners in the June 2 primary election.  “Primaries are where we’re picking out the starting line-up,” Regier said in a phone interview. “You bet I want to influence that.”  Montana Senate Leadership PAC also received $50,000 from School Freedom Fund, a federal Super PAC that is almost entirely funded by Pennsylvania’s richest man, Jeff Yass, who contributed $15 million over the last 10 months, according to public campaign finance filings. Yass is a frequent Republican donor and a staunch advocate of school choice.  Unlike Carlson, Albus said he won’t be filing a complaint over the mailers, saying he doesn’t want to “dignify” them. “It’s politics. It’s a full-contact sport,” he said. “Maybe it’s been too long in Montana politics since someone got a broken nose.” The post Doctored images of legislative candidates spur complaint appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less