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AI Biden robocalls allegedly suppressing New Hampshire votes linked to Texas companies, AG says
Two days before the primary, voters who received the calls heard an AI-generated President Joe Biden saying things like "Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday."
The source of thousands of robocalls impersonating President Joe Biden encouraging New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the state’s January primary has been identified as a Texas company, the New Hampshire Attorney General announced.
Life Corporation and its founding owner Walter Monk were issued a cease-and-desist Tuesday to stop the calls.
On Jan. 21, two days before the primary, voters who received the calls heard AI-generated Biden saying, “It’s important that you save your vote for the November election” and “Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”
The calls also appeared to come from the former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair, which the AG said is an illegal deception to further suppress voters.
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Investigators used tracebacks to identify Monk’s corporation as the source of the calls, and the originating voice service provider for “many” of the calls was Lingo Telecom, another Texas-based company. The Federal Communications Commission also issued a cease-and-desist against Lingo on Tuesday to “stop supporting illegal robocall traffic on its networks,” the AG said.
Lingo said that Life Corporation had the right to use the allegedly “spoofed” number of the party chair, according to the North Carolina Department of Justice
Life Corporation allegedly made thousands of fake calls
In their notice to Life Corporation, the North Carolina DoJ said they reviewed 20,000 calls made from the spoofed number during the two days before the primary.
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“The Task Force also has reason to believe there was an intention to cause harm to prospective voters by attempting to discourage them from exercising their constitutionally protected right to vote and to cause harm to the subscriber of the phone number that was spoofed,” North Carolina Special Deputy Attorney General Tracy Nayer wrote.
The New Hampshire AG said Life Corporation made anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 robocalls calls.
The New Hampshire AG said that the investigation into election law violations, consumer protection act violations, and telephone consumer protection act violations is ongoing while they work to determine the total number of calls made.
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