March, 14 2024, 12:09pm EDT
New Federal Lawsuit Challenges Use of Artificial Intelligence in U.S. Elections to Undermine Voting Rights
Following robocalls featuring deepfaked President Biden’s voice urging people not to vote in the New Hampshire Primary, the League of Women Voters has filed a federal lawsuit to block the use of AI technology to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or deceive voters.
MANCHESTER, NH
The League of Women Voters of the United States (LWV-US), the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire (LWV-NH), and several individual New Hampshire voters have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire against Steve Kramer, Lingo Telecom, and Life Corporation, who together delivered robocalls to New Hampshire residents featuring a deepfaked President Biden’s voice telling them not to vote in the New Hampshire primaries in January. LWV-NH, LWV-US, and the individual voters seek to stop the defendants from using robocalls and AI technology to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or deceive voters. Free Speech For People and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP represent the plaintiffs, along with local counsel Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau, & Pachios, Chartered, LLP.
Ahead of the New Hampshire presidential primary, Steve Kramer paid to create a recorded message using artificial intelligence to mimic President Biden’s voice. Posing as President Biden, the messages falsely implied that voters could not vote in both the primary and general elections and urged voters to “save” their vote for November. The defendants sent the message via robocalls to thousands of New Hampshire residents for a single evening just two days before the New Hampshire primary elections. Many of the robocalls “spoofed” the phone number of the former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair—causing her number to appear on many recipients’ caller IDs to make it appear that the robocalls originated with her. When news of the deception became public, thousands of voters had already received robocalls.
“These deceptive robocalls attempted to cause widespread confusion among New Hampshire voters,” said Liz Tentarelli, president of the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire. “As a nonpartisan organization, the League of Women Voters works to ensure that all voters, regardless of their party affiliation, have the most accurate election information to make their voices heard. We will continue to advocate for New Hampshire voters and fight against malicious schemes to suppress the vote.”
“These types of voter suppression tactics have no place in our democracy,” said Celina Stewart, chief counsel at the League of Women Voters of the United States. “Voters deserve to make their voices heard freely and without intimidation. For over 100 years, the League of Women Voters has worked to protect voters from these unlawful crimes and will continue to fight back against bad-faith actors who aim to disrupt our democratic system.”
The lawsuit argues that the robocalls violated federal and state laws that protect voters from intimidation, threats, coercion, and deception: (1) the Voting Rights Act, which bans intimidating, threatening, or coercing, or attempting to intimidate, threaten or coerce, any person from voting; and (2) the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related provisions of New Hampshire state law, which ban deceiving recipients about the source of robocalls or disseminating political messages via robocalls without disclosing who made and funded the calls.
The plaintiffs ask the court for an injunction to stop the defendants from producing, generating, or distributing AI-generated robocalls that impersonate U.S. politicians and from distributing “spoofed” communications. Without an injunction, these defendants (as well as other potential robocall abusers) may carry out similar campaigns to suppress voting in advance of other primary elections or ahead of the general election in November. The lawsuit states, “[i]f these deceptive and coercive tactics are not immediately declared unlawful, enjoined, and redressed, citizens’ ability to exercise their right to vote free and unimpaired—the linchpin of all other civil and political rights—will be in grave peril.”
“Fraudulently made robocalls have the potential to devastate voter turnout by flooding thousands of voters with intimidating, threatening, or coercive messages in a matter of hours,” says Courtney Hostetler, Senior Counsel at Free Speech For People, which serves as co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “No one should abuse technology to make lawful voters think that they should not, or cannot safely, vote in the primaries or in any election. It is an honor to represent the League of Women Voters and the other plaintiffs in this important case to protect the right to vote.”
"As a former state attorney general, I know the damage that voter suppression can inflict on our democracy,” said Mark Herring of Akin, a lawyer for the plaintiffs and former two-term Virginia attorney general. "We must hold accountable those who abuse new technology to undermine our freedom to vote."
The League of Women Voters is at the forefront of the most important federal and state cases across the United States. To learn more about the League’s litigation work visit our Legal Center to review historic and active cases on our docket.
Akin is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Akin’s global pro bono practice leverages the experience, knowledge and passion of our lawyers, advisors and business services personnel to advance access to justice by representing refugees seeking asylum, tenants fighting eviction, veterans seeking health benefits, domestic violence survivors, nonprofit organizations and other clients in need.
Free Speech For People is a national non-profit organization dedicated to defending our democracy and our Constitution. The organization serves as a leading force in the country in litigation to protect the right to vote, including prior litigation stopping illegal voter intimidation in Minnesota leading up to the November 2020 election and current cases challenging voter intimidation in Colorado and voter suppression laws in Arizona and Texas.
Read our full complaint here.
Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization founded on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that works to defend our democracy and our Constitution.
LATEST NEWS
Portland State University Pauses Ties With Boeing as Campus Protests Spread
Amnesty International has documented several cases in which Israeli forces used Boeing-made weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.
Apr 27, 2024
The president of Portland State University announced Friday that the school would suspend its connections to the military contractor Boeing as campus protests against U.S. colleges' complicity in Israel's war on Gaza intensified.
In an email to students and faculty, PSU president Ann Cudd wrote that while the university has no investments in Boeing, it "accepts philanthropic gifts from the company."
"In consideration of the strong feelings that have been expressed, PSU will pause seeking or accepting any further gifts or grants from the Boeing Company until we have had a chance to engage in this debate and come to conclusions about a reasonable course of action," Cudd wrote.
The announcement came amid an upsurge of campus protests nationwide, with students and faculty walking out of classrooms and setting up encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The demonstrations have continued spreading in the face of violent police crackdowns and right-wing attempts to discredit them as antisemitic; one tally shows that protests have taken place on at least 75 U.S. campuses over the past week.
Oregon Public Broadcastingnoted Friday that PSU students and faculty have been pushing the university to cut ties with Boeing for months, citing its connections to Israel. Cudd said at a press conference last month that Boeing donated $150,000 to PSU to name a classroom and that a Boeing executive sits on the advisory board of PSU's business school.
On Thursday night, OPB reported, "a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters, some of whom were holding anti-Boeing signs, set up tents and barricades on Portland State University's South Park Blocks."
"Demonstrators had planned to hold a protest on the PSU campus Monday, but it was not immediately clear if the university's pause on relations to Boeing would change those plans," the outlet observed. One student told OPB that "the funding from Boeing has already been received by PSU for the year, so putting a pause on it doesn't actually do anything."
"It doesn't change anything about the way things are being conducted," the student added.
Boeing is one of the largest military contractors in the world, and Amnesty International has documented at least three cases in which Israeli forces used weaponry made by the company to commit atrocities in Gaza.
In one instance earlier this year, the Israeli military used a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb manufactured by Boeing to attack a family building in Rafah, killing 18 civilians and wounding eight others. In October, Israel used Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions to conduct a pair of airstrikes in Deir al-Balah, killing more than 43 people from two families—including 19 children.
Students across the country have called on their universities to divest from arms manufacturers like Boeing that are profiting from Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, where the entire population is facing the possibility of famine as Israeli forces impede aid deliveries and prepare for a ground invasion of Rafah.
The Associated Pressreported Friday that Columbia University students who inspired campus demonstrations across the country said they have "reached an impasse with administrators and intend to continue their encampment until their demands are met."
"We will not rest until Columbia divests," said doctoral student Jonathan Ben-Menachem.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Indigenous Brazilians Mobilize for Land Demarcation, Tribal Rights
Participants in the 20th Free Land Camp demanded that leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva deliver on his promises to Indigenous people.
Apr 26, 2024
Thousands of people rallied this week in Brasília for the 20th annual Free Land Camp—the largest gathering of Indigenous people in Brazil—where participants demanded that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration safeguard their lands and cultural rights
Organized by the Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples (APIB), the five-day Free Land Camp—in Portuguese, Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL)—wrapped up Friday after a week of solidarity and action. Activities included rallies and marches; events commemorating slain Indigenous activists; and plenary sessions on the climate emergency, education, mental health, and more.
Some participants criticized Lula—who was notably absent from this year's ATL after attending the previous two camps—for what they said was his failure to fulfill campaign promises to Indigenous Brazilians—although attendees also acknowledged that his administration has taken major steps toward tackling illegal resource extraction and demarcating tribal lands.
Two big issues at this year's ATL—whose theme was "Our Existence is Ancestral: We Have Always Been Here!"—were the demarcation of Indigenous lands and opposition to proposed Amazon megaprojects, especially the plan to build the EF-170 railway through the heart of the imperiled rainforest in order to boost mining, logging, agribusiness, and other resource extraction and exploitation.
Last year, Brazilian lawmakers overruled Lula's partial veto of the highly contentious "Marco Temporal" law, which effectively paused demarcations and potentially opened more Indigenous lands to exploitation.
Demarcation confers legal protections against the illegal logging, mining, and ranching that have plagued rural Brazil for generations. On April 19—Indigenous Peoples Day in Brazil—Lula touted his government's demarcation of Aldeia Velha, land of the Pataxó people, in the northeastern state of Bahia, as well as the territory of the Karajá people in Cacique Fontoura, Mato Grosso.
Lula has acknowledged that his administration is falling short of its own demarcation pledges to Indigenous people and has promised to do more.
Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a member of the Munduruku people and a 2023 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, criticized the demarcation delay.
"Twenty years of resistance struggle by the Terra Livre camp. For 20 years we've been coming to Brasília, occupying and seeking our rights," she said. "This year, we're waiting for the government to demarcate all our lands. But the government is letting the [state] governors decide for us."
"This is not what we expect. It's not the governor's decision to make. It's the federal government's," Korap Munduruku added. "This is written in the Constitution, and we see that we are being used."
Brazilian and international agribusiness interests, including commodity traders like U.S.-based Cargill, are pushing Lula's administration to proceed with EF-170—commonly called the Ferrogrão—over the objections of Indigenous peoples. Kayapó leader Doto Takak-Ire warned last year that the Ferrogrão threatens the survival of no less than 48 native peoples, calling the project "the railway of Indigenous genocide."
Earlier this year, Brazilian Transport Minister Renan Filho said that building the Ferrogrão is a top administration priority, sparking widespread disappointment and anger among the Kayapó and other Indigenous people who say they'll be adversely affected by the railway.
ATL participants on Thursday led a "train of death" through Brasília's Esplanade of Ministries, a greenway bisecting numerous government buildings, to draw attention to the project's perils.
"Ferrogrão is the train of death, of deforestation," Korap Munduruku said Thursday.
"The railroad is not going to carry people, as they claim, but grain production of international companies that are financing this project," she continued. "It's a project that will affect not only Indigenous people, but also traditional communities and the people who live in the towns alongside its route."
"In addition, it is a project that will affect people all over the world because it would exacerbate climate change with the massive deforestation it would cause," Korap Munduruku added.
APIB executive coordinator Kleber Karipuna said the government did not adequately consult Indigenous peoples when planning the Ferrogrão.
"Hearings have only been held in cities, none in Indigenous villages," the Karipuna tribal leader said. "Once again, we demand that the protocols for consulting Indigenous peoples be respected. Additionally, the absence of a consultation protocol should not be used as an excuse to deny consultation of peoples affected by the project."
Takakpe Tapayuna Metuktire of the Raoni Institute, which promotes Indigenous rights and sustainability, warned that "Ferrogrão represents the death of kilometers and kilometers of forest."
"While we should be thinking about how to preserve what remains and think about alternative infrastructure projects that respect our rights, nature, and Indigenous and traditional peoples," Tapayuna Metuktire asserted. "We are fighting to prevent yet another project of death and destruction from prevailing in the Amazon. With Ferrogrão all that will be left is scorched earth."
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Warns of 'Catastrophic' Imminent Escalation in Sudan
Warring factions in North Darfur state must "avoid locating military installations within or near densely populated areas, including towns and camps for internally displaced people," said one U.N. official.
Apr 26, 2024
The United Nations' top humanitarian affairs officials on Friday called for an immediate deescalation of hostilities in Sudan, where rival factions in the military government have been fighting for a year and where an attack on the city of El Fasher is reportedly imminent.
About 800,000 people in the city, the capital of North Darfur state, are in "extreme and immediate danger," U.N. aid operations director, Edem Wosornu, told the U.N. Security Council earlier this week, as she reported that clashes between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are nearing El Fasher.
Fighting between the two groups has intensified in recent weeks, forcibly displacing an estimated 40,000 people.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday that the security situation in North Darfur has left more than a dozen aid trucks with relief supplies for 122,000 people stranded in neighboring Northern state, unable to proceed into the only capital city in Darfur that is not controlled by RSF.
"A patchwork of armed actors, including the Darfur Joint Protection Forces, the SAF, and the RSF control different parts of the El Fasher area," Human Rights Watch reported this week. "Tense calm alternating with episodic fighting has prevailed for months."
Since April 14, when RSF began to push into El Fasher, at least 43 people—including women and children—have been killed due to fighting between the SAF and RSF.
"Civilians are trapped in the city, afraid of being killed should they attempt to flee," said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk. "This dire situation is compounded by a severe shortage of essential supplies as deliveries of commercial goods and humanitarian aid have been heavily constrained by the fighting, and delivery trucks are unable to freely transit through RSF-controlled territory."
The lack of humanitarian aid in North Darfur has pushed the state toward a famine, with one child dying of starvation every two hours, according to a February report by Doctors Without Borders.
In December, the U.S. State Department announced an $85 million sale of radar and other military equipment to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which The New York Times reported last year has been covertly supporting the RSF.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) proposed a joint resolution to block arms sales to the UAE in January, in light of its support for the paramilitary group.
Omar was among several lawmakers who wrote to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week, urging them to "deliver urgently-needed humanitarian assistance" and to help end the hostilities.
Sudanese-Australian writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied urged Americans on Friday to pressure lawmakers and the White House to take more action.
"There is a tiny window of opportunity for us to find a way to get the UAE... to make the RSF to stop in their tracks," said Abdel-Magied. "Maybe there's a way that we can avoid this massacre."
OCHA called on the warring parties to "take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations."
"They must, to the extent possible, avoid locating military installations within or near densely populated areas, including towns and camps for internally displaced people," said the office. "It is also imperative that the parties allow safe passage for civilians to leave El Fasher for safer areas."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular