“New Hampshire remains committed to ensuring that our elections remain free from unlawful interference, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing,” Mr. Formella said.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a $6 million fine for Mr. Kramer, 54, a Louisiana-based political consultant who is indicted on 13 counts of felony voter suppression and 13 counts of misdemeanor impersonation of a candidate.
“The Federal Communications Commission will separately be announcing an enforcement action against Mr. Kramer based on violations of federal law,” the attorney general continued. “I am pleased to see that our federal partners are similarly committed to protecting consumers and voters from harmful robocalls and voter suppression. I hope that our respective enforcement actions send a strong deterrent signal to anyone who might consider interfering with elections, whether through the use of artificial intelligence or otherwise.”
Mr. Kramer has admitted to orchestrating the AI-generated voice similar to the president’s and using the phrase ‘What a bunch of malarkey’ in the call that was sent to thousands of voters.
The voice also falsely suggested that voting in the primary would preclude voters from casting ballots in the general election in November.
Voters who received the robocall message were allegedly asked to “save [their] vote for the November election.” The message also stated, “[y]our vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday,” according to the attorney general’s office.
“We will act swiftly and decisively to ensure that bad actors cannot use the telecommunications networks to facilitate the misuse of generative AI technology to interfere with elections, defraud consumers, or compromise sensitive data,” Loyann Egal, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau chief, said in a statement.
Telecom Company Also Faces Fine
In a separate announcement, the FCC proposed a $2 million fine in a “first-of-its-kind enforcement action” against Lingo Telecom, the company accused of transmitting the robocalls, for violating federal caller identification authentication rules.Texas-based Lingo Telecom is accused of not applying protocols to verify the accuracy of the customer’s information and failing to use certain standards mandated by the commission that serve as a “digital identifier for each call to empower tracebacks of suspicious calls, inform robocall blocking tools, and support more reliable caller ID information for consumers.”
“We will hold providers accountable for failing to know their customers and for failing to uphold the rules we have in place to protect the American public,” Mr. Egal said.
The investigation into the AI-generated robocalls impersonating President Biden, including other possible responsible parties, remains ongoing.
