The U.S. League of Women Voters and several individual New Hampshire voters have sued a New York political consultant for allegedly funding robocalls that recreated President Joe Biden’s voice using artificial intelligence.
New Hampshire residents were allegedly told by the fake voice not to vote in the state’s Jan. 23 primary.
“The robocall served to discourage participation, and had voters second guessing their ability to vote,” League of Women Voters Chief Counsel Celina Stewart said at a virtual press conference Thursday. “Any bad actor who is working to discourage or undermine our election should be a threat to all of us. That’s why the league is involved in this case.”
The Election Law Unit of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office is working with the Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force on the matter.
An estimated 5,000 to 25,000 calls were made, according to the call monitoring service Nomorobo.
Some of the robocalls spoofed a personal phone number associated with former state Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan, a known supporter of President Biden.
The message instructed recipients to call the number belonging to Ms. Sullivan to be removed from future calls.
“Regardless of the technology that’s used, the tools or the means that are used, it is still unlawful to intimidate, threaten, or coerce somebody who is trying to exercise their right to vote,” Mark Herring, former Virginia attorney general and counsel with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, said at the press conference. “There are laws that will prohibit this type of conduct regardless of whether they use AI or any other tool to accomplish it.”
Other defendants named in the complaint are Lingo Telecom LLC and Life Corp.
“We don’t know how many thousands of people didn’t recognize it as a deceptive call or at least didn’t recognize it in time,” Courtney Hostetler, Free Speech For People senior counselor, told reporters. “In this situation, it was wonderful because there was a prompt response both in the media and from leaders who were able to swiftly respond. Our hope is that many people were able to learn of the deception before it cost them their right to vote.”The New Hampshire GOP did not respond to requests for comment.
The plaintiffs seek a permanent and nationwide injunction enjoining Mr. Kramer, Lingo Telecom LLC, and Life Corp from producing, generating, or distributing AI-generated robocalls impersonating any person without that person’s express, prior written consent.
“There is serious concern they will try campaigns like this in other states both during this primary season and before the general election and before a myriad of other elections that we are going to be in happening in this country, this year and in future years,” Ms. Hostetler added.
Neither Lingo Telecom LLC nor Life Corp. responded to requests for comment.
Mr. Kramer told CBS last month that he had received a subpoena from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the matter and that he had spent $500 on the robocalls to raise awareness about the dangers of using AI in politics.
“I don’t need to be famous,” he said. “That’s not my intention. My intention was to make a difference.”
This is not Mr. Kramer’s first lawsuit.
In a 2021 Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit, the New York Post reported that Republican Sarah Tirschwell blames Mr. Kramer for not obtaining enough signatures to qualify her to run for mayor of New York in the GOP primary.
Mr. Kramer’s excuse of demonstrating the dangers of AI is self serving, according to Mr. Herring.
“We will certainly be testing it, but regardless of the motivation, the intent here was to suppress the vote and to threaten and coerce voters into not voting out of fear that they might lose their right to vote,” he said during the Zoom press conference. “That’s why we’re bringing this case.”
The lawsuit alleges that the robocalls violate the Voting Rights Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and New Hampshire Election Laws, which ban deceiving recipients about the source of robocalls or disseminating political messages via robocalls without disclosing who made and funded the calls.
