Dotted line appears in final image file (Photoshop, png, and jpeg)

Hi all,

I have a logo file that was created with Illustrator CC 23 on Windows. There are several color variants for the logo, and each one was created the same way, including the solid white one:

As you can see here, there are two separate layers for the top and bottom halves of the text in "EnSight". When the logo is placed in Photoshop as a Smart Object, there is a dotted gray line that appears where the separation in the groups would have been:

With the other color variants, this isn't a problem since the colors seem to cover up any separation areas. For the white version, I "solved" the problem by basically just painting over the line in Photoshop, then saving that as the final format (png and jpeg). Is there a way to avoid this problem in the first place from the Illustrator file? The original designer for this never answered that question, and so every time I've needed to use the AI file for any reason when in PS I have to use the brush to correct that.

Thank you!

-LT