Key takeaways:
AI and robocalls have been used in recent years to suppress the vote and spread false information about candidates and the electoral system.
Before New Hampshire’s presidential primary election in January 2024, voters eligible to vote in the Democratic primary began receiving robocalls in what sounded like the voice of then-President Joe Biden — but in reality, they were fakes generated by artificial intelligence.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a comment urging the FCC to reject a petition that would exempt political robocalls (including those made with AI) from prior consent requirements, noting that unregulated political robocalls would be dangerous at any time.
Why are AI robocalls dangerous for our democracy?
Two days before New Hampshire’s presidential primary election in January 2024, voters eligible to vote in the Democratic primary began receiving robocalls — calls that disseminate an automated audio recording — in what sounded like the voice of then-President Joe Biden.
These robocalls, however, were not recorded by the real President Biden; instead, they were a targeted disinformation campaign that used artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic Biden’s voice and mislead and disenfranchise voters.
In the recorded message, the fake “Biden” voice discouraged the call recipients from voting in the Democratic primary, telling them to instead “save [their] vote for the November [general] election.” The calls sparked confusion about whether voters could lawfully cast a ballot in both the primary and general election.
Election officials scrambled to inform voters that they could vote in both the primary and general elections, but with only 48 hours before polls opened, they faced a serious challenge to remedy the disinformation spread by the fake “Biden” robocalls before voters relied on it and missed their opportunity to cast a ballot.
Eventually, law enforcement traced the call to a political consultant and telecommunications company, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined them heavily for their illegal conduct.
But the damage to voters who had lost their chance to vote was already done. And still further damage was caused by the distrust and uncertainty the incident created among the public about whether they can trust the political communications they see and hear.
This disinformation campaign is just one example of how both AI and robocalls have been used in recent years to suppress the vote and spread false information about candidates and the electoral system. But despite this alarming trend, some still want the FCC to loosen the restrictions on political robocalls, including calls created with AI.
How does federal law regulate robocalls?
Federal law prohibits robocalls to cell phones unless the recipient of the call has previously consented to receive such calls.
In August 2026, however, the Club for Growth — a politically active dark money group that doesn’t disclose its donors — petitioned the FCC to exempt political robocalls (including those made with AI) from this prior consent requirement, specifically asking for permission for groups to make unsolicited political AI robocalls to cell phones before the November 2026 general election.
How can we prevent AI robocalls before an election?
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a comment urging the FCC to reject the petition, noting that unregulated political robocalls would be dangerous at any time, and could be disastrous if the rules were suddenly changed immediately before the midterms, since officials would not have time to mitigate the harms of any robocalls used to spread disinformation.
Robocalls spreading false information about the election would be particularly harmful to voters — and to the trust they should have in our system. Furthermore, voters are understandably alarmed about AI deepfakes. About 76% of Americans fear that deepfakes will impact the midterm election — a view supported by the $137 million groups have reportedly spent on AI-generated campaign ads this election cycle. In fact, 43% of voters report having been fooled by at least one AI election ad.
Unleashing a fresh torrent of AI-generated robocalls now, in the last two weeks before the 2026 general election, would exacerbate these concerns and risk sending voters to the polls with deceptively false impressions about the candidates seeking their support, or even sowing confusion and doubt about where, when, and whether they can vote.
Democracy depends on people trusting elections, which requires voters to have a shared understanding of electoral rules and confidence that what they are seeing and hearing about candidates and the electoral process is reliable.
Unsolicited, AI-generated robocalls to voters’ cell phones — when both robocalls and AI have a proven track record of spreading lies and can be particularly deceiving when combined — aren’t just a nuisance; they’re downright dangerous for our democracy.
Nobody wants more spam calls on their cell phones, and our democracy shouldn’t be made more vulnerable to disinformation campaigns. The FCC must act in the public interest by rejecting this proposal, reaffirming that it’s illegal for political operatives to make unsolicited political robocalls to voters’ cell phones.