League of Women Voters Sues Alleged Originators of N.H. Primary Robocalls

Political consultant Steve Kramer, broadband provider Lingo Telecom and robocall broadcaster Life Corp sent “thousands of robocalls” two days before the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary to people they thought were likely Democratic voters, featuring deepfake simulations of the voice of President Joe Biden, alleged a complaint Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-00073) in U.S. District Court for New Hampshire in Concord.

The complaint was brought by the League of Women Voters and its New Hampshire chapter, plus three voters who actually received the robocalls. They allege that the defendants’ “malicious use" of AI technology "poses a novel and dangerous threat to American democracy.” The three voters initially recognized the voice on the calls as Biden’s, but realized as the calls went on that the voice was faked, it said.

The calls “coercively” stated the falsehood that by participating in the New Hampshire primary, Democratic voters would lose their right to vote in the general election, the complaint said. Defendants spoofed the call to deceive voters into believing the call came from a former leader of the local Democratic Party who was known to be spearheading efforts to help Biden win a write-in campaign, it said.

It’s “essential that voters be able to exercise their right to vote," free of deception, coercion, threat or intimidation, said the complaint. Using “inexpensive and widely available technology,” the defendants were able to send a threatening message “seemingly" from Biden, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, to thousands of voters, it said. The defendants “spoofed the call by misappropriating the identity" of a local Democratic Party leader, it said.

If the defendants’ “deceptive and coercive tactics” aren’t immediately declared unlawful, enjoined, and punished, “citizens’ ability to exercise their right to vote free and unimpaired -- the linchpin of all other civil and political rights -- will be imperiled,” the complaint said.

The defendants demonstrated that they are capable of executing “a mass voter suppression scheme” when they did so on Jan. 21, “less than 48 hours before an election, at minimal costs,” the complaint said. If they’re not enjoined, they can be expected to do so again, engaging in “future intimidating, threatening, and coercive schemes, impacting even more consequential elections, with even more devastating consequences,” it said.

Based on information and belief, defendant Kramer began receiving requests from consultants, corporations and political action committees that he use AI-generated robocalls in connection with “unspecified campaigns,” said the complaint. Before the New Hampshire primary, Kramer commissioned Paul Carpenter, a “digital nomad” and magician, to create a deepfake recording impersonating Biden’s voice, it said.

Carpenter used publicly available software from Elevenlabs to generate the deepfake of Biden’s voice in “less than 20 minutes” at a cost of $1, said the complaint. Kramer directed Carpenter to his father, Bruce Kramer, to receive payment for creating the deepfake voice, and on Jan. 20, Bruce Kramer’s Venmo account sent two payments totaling $150 to Carpenter, the complaint said.

Kramer hired Life Corp to distribute “thousands of robocalls to likely Democratic voters in New Hampshire” and gave it the deepfake recording of Biden’s voice, said the complaint. Life Corp used Lingo’s services to disseminate the calls, it said. Lingo provided certain of the calls “A-level Stir/Shaken attestations,” it said, asserting that Life Corp “had the legal right to utilize the phone number that appeared on recipients’ caller IDs,” the complaint said.

Life Corp and Lingo should have been aware of the false information reflected in the call, but they "nevertheless failed to prevent the message’s broadcast,” said the complaint. Instead, they sent the “deceptive and coercive robocalls to thousands of phone numbers in New Hampshire in a short amount of time,” it said.

Some of the calls exhibited patterns "consistent" with a Telephony Denial of Service attack, said the complaint. Caller ID information on those calls showed they were coming from the phone number of former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan and warned potential Democratic voters against participating in the primary election, it said.

On Jan. 22, following an NBC News report on the robocalls, Kramer admitted to Carpenter in a phone call that he had spoofed the robocalls “or deliberately falsified the information transmitted via caller ID display to disguise their identity,” said the complaint; Kramer also directed him to delete his emails about the calls, it said

On Feb. 6, the Multistate Task Force issued a notice to Life Corp about the company’s involvement in “suspected illegal robocall traffic” in the New Hampshire robocalls, the complaint said. The letter cited 10 traceback notices from the Industry Traceback Group identifying Life Corp as the originator of the traced calls and saying that the calls were illegally spoofed likely “in a further attempt to confuse potential voters,” it said.

The letter said that by affixing an A-level attestation, “not only did Life Corp wrongfully use this calling number, but that Lingo improperly attested that Life Corp had the legal right to use the allegedly spoofed number,” said the complaint. The task force warned Life Corp that its actions may have violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Truth in Caller ID Act and the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule, and that Life Corp “could be subject to damages, civil penalties, injunctions, and other available relief as a result,” it said.

The FCC issued a notice of suspected illegal traffic to Lingo Feb. 6, identifying it as the originator of the robocalls, said the complaint. It noted that Lingo potentially faced permissive and mandatory blocking and potential removal from the Robocall Mitigation Database under federal law, it said. New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella (R) said Feb. 6 that his office had launched a criminal investigation into the New Hampshire robocalls and had identified Life Corp and Lingo as the originators.

Kramer acknowledged his involvement in the robocalls Feb. 25 in a “self-serving statement,” claiming he orchestrated the scheme to raise awareness about the use of AI for “misleading and disruptive purposes,” the complaint said. He also acknowledged that he tested "the effectiveness" of deepfake calls in South Carolina before deploying them in New Hampshire, it said.

The robocalls “materially damage” the League of Women Voters' mission to assure voters that elections will be “safe, secure and trustworthy” by requiring the organization to divert resources to address and defend against defendants’ actions, said the complaint. The league maintains a “threat matrix of election scenarios" with state chapters to assess and respond to if a scenario occurs, it said.

Before the New Hampshire primary, the league rated “disruptive vote-suppressing robocalls relatively low on the threat scale and allocated resources accordingly,” said the complaint. After the New Hampshire robocalls, it raised its threat level of similar robocalls in other states and the general election “to the second-highest ranking,” it said. The league will incur monetary costs to prepare for and respond to robocalls, it said.

The defendants’ misconduct must be declared “unlawful for the sake of protecting the long-term health of American democracy,” said the complaint. The defendants’ “pernicious combination of deepfake audio and spoofed caller ID can inflict untold damage on Americans’ ability to cast their vote free of impairment,” it said. If the defendants aren’t enjoined and punished, “their conduct is likely to be adopted by others, thereby inflicting further harm to other voters,” it said.

The plaintiffs assert violations of the Voting Rights Act, the TCPA and New Hampshire election laws. They seek declarative and injunctive relief, and damages of $500 for each TCPA violation, trebled because the violations were knowing and willful, and $1,000 for each violation of New Hampshire election statutes, plus attorneys’ fees and costs.