TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas — Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Vikki Goodwin has asked the Travis County Sheriff’s Office to investigate two social media videos she alleges were AI-generated deepfakes posted by Republican incumbent Dan Patrick. Goodwin filed a notarized affidavit with the sheriff’s office Saturday. In it, she said the videos appeared to show her, but that she did not perform or say what was depicted. She alleged Patrick posted the videos with the intent to deceive voters, harm her candidacy or influence the election. The videos were posted Sept. 5 and Sept. 12 on Patrick’s campaign-related account on X, according to the affidavit. The dates fell before the start of early voting for the Nov. 3 election, which begins Oct. 19. Links to the posts were no longer working by the time of the filing. Texas law bars political deepfakes during the final 30 days before an election. The 2019 law defines a prohibited deepfake as content created with the intent to deceive that appears to show a real person carrying out an action that did not happen. A conviction is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a $4,000 fine, as much as one year in jail, or both. The statute applies to official Texas elections. Patrick’s campaign spokesman, Allen Blakemore, said the videos were “an obvious parody produced to entertain” and argued they were not distributed within the 30-day period covered by the law. The dispute comes as Goodwin and Patrick face a competitive race for the state’s second-highest office. Patrick, a Republican, has served as lieutenant governor since 2015 and is seeking another term. Goodwin, a Democratic state representative from Austin, is challenging him in the general election. The complaint highlights a growing problem for voters and election officials: synthetic media can imitate candidates quickly and at relatively low cost, while legal remedies may depend on proving both when content was distributed and what its creator intended. The sheriff’s office had not announced whether it would open an investigation, and no criminal finding had been made as of Monday.