By In New Hampshire, the attorney general has announced an investigation into voter suppression after it was discovered that phone calls using an AI-generated voice mimicking President Biden were being placed all over the state.
The phone calls discouraged voting in Tuesday’s primary election.
The Attorney General’s Office announced it “has received complaints regarding a recorded message encouraging voters not to vote in the January 23, 2024, New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election. The message, which was sent on January 21, 2024, stated ‘your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.’ Although the voice in the robocall sounds like the voice of President Biden, this message appears to be artificially generated based on initial indications.
The message appears to have been “spoofed” to falsely show that it had been sent by the treasurer of a political committee that has been supporting the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary write-in efforts for President Biden. The message’s content directed recipients who wished to be removed from a calling list to call the number belonging to this person.
These messages appear to be an unlawful attempt to disrupt the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election and to suppress New Hampshire voters. New Hampshire voters should disregard the content of this message entirely.”
The investigation comes after a prominent New Hampshire Democrat, whose personal cell phone number showed up on the caller ID of those receiving the call, filed a complaint, according to NBC News.
“What a bunch of malarkey,” the robocall phone message begins, echoing a favorite term Biden has uttered before.
The message says that “it’s important that you save your vote for the November election.”
“Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday,” it says.
The message concludes with a phone number belonging to Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair who is now running a super PAC supporting the campaign to urge New Hampshire Democrats to write in Biden’s name in the primary.
Last year, Biden angered New Hampshire Democrats by pushing for the Granite State to lose its privilege as the first primary in the nation because the state is not “diverse” enough. On Tuesday, the president will not be on the Democratic primary ballot after his reelection campaign refused to recognize Granite State’s primary as legitimate.
The Hill explained that “as part of a plan to reshuffle the long-standing party lineup, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) set forth a new schedule that booted New Hampshire from its first-place slot, moving up South Carolina’s primary to kick off the voting process.
The Biden-backed shake-up was intended to add more diversity to the party’s calendar, boosting voices of color by putting more demographically diverse states earlier in the timeline. States that vote or caucus first are widely seen as key to the trajectory and momentum of the cycle.
‘Too often over the past fifty years, candidates have dropped out or had their candidacies marginalized by the press and pundits because of poor performances in small states early in the process before voters of color cast a vote,’ Biden wrote in a 2022 letter to the DNC.”
The national Democrats did not intend to move New Hampshire to the bottom of the list. Instead, they initially scheduled South Carolina’s primary on February 3 and allowed New Hampshire to host their selections merely three days later.
The plan angered New Hampshire Democrats. “The DNC did not give New Hampshire the first-in-the-nation primary and it is not theirs to take away,” New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley said in 2022.
Although Biden did not file to be on the ballot, his competitors jumped at the opportunity to use the first-in-the-nation primary to make their marks.
The New York Times noted that “Democrats running challenges to Mr. Biden are trying to capitalize — including Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, the author Marianne Williamson and 19 other Democrats on New Hampshire’s expansive primary ballot.
Mr. Phillips has spent millions of dollars on television ads in New Hampshire, and Ms. Williamson has activated supporters who were involved in her 2020 campaign — when she placed 14th with 95 votes. A poll released Sunday from CNN and the University of New Hampshire showed that 63 percent of likely voters in the state’s Democratic primary said they would write in Mr. Biden, 10 percent planned to vote for Mr. Phillips and 9 percent were set to back Ms. Williamson.
Mr. Phillips, who began his campaign in October, just before the deadline to qualify for the New Hampshire ballot, said he would deliver “a real surprise” in the state but stopped far short of promising a victory over a candidate who isn’t on the ballot.
‘As for Tuesday night, I think anything’s going to be a success,’ he told reporters after a campaign stop on Saturday in Nashua. ‘If I’m in double digits or in the 20s, is what I’d like to see. Either way, I’m going to keep going.’”
While DNC leaders claim that they wanted diversity, many commentators have noted that South Carolina was the first state that Joe Biden won in 2020, propelling him over Bernie Sanders after the Vermont senator won New Hampshire while Biden placed fifth.
Democrats all over the country have been working overtime to prevent the unpopular president from being shown up in their party’s primary. In Florida, for example, Democrats canceled their primary altogether, effectively rigging the election in the president’s favor.
The New Hampshire attorney general said that the Election Law Unit’s investigation is ongoing.
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