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How to combat unwanted political calls and texts during election season

As the presidential election 2024 approaches, voters are increasingly inundated with unwanted political calls and texts, raising concerns about spam communication.

SAN DIEGO — With election day less than a week away, you’re seeing it happening more and more.

People are being inundated with text messages and calls from campaigns asking for money, or urging you to vote.

"Eight, 10 o'clock at night. I'm just fed up," said Brenda Bell.

"Ten text messages each day," said another voter.

According to a new report published by California Public Interest Research Group, or CALPIRG, despite a Federal law aimed at reducing spam calls and texts, unwanted calls are only down 17% in three years, yet unwanted robotexts have tripled during the same time frame.

Call blocking service Robo Killer says Americans received a record 15 billion political texts in 2022.

That's an average of fifty for every cell phone in the country.

A record that's on track to be broken this year.

"Political calls and texts don't have to play by all of the same rules as other types of marketing, you know, text messages or calls, but there are some rules that they need to abide by,” said Jenn Engstrom, the state director for the CALPIRG Education Fund.

She told CBS 8 political calls are exempt from the national do not call list.

As for political text messages, they're ok too.

But, if it's a robotext, they need your consent, something you likely gave unknowingly.

“You might not have realized that you gave consent by signing something online or making a donation in the past, and there was probably some fine text," said Engstrom.

How to stop political text spam


For unwanted text messages, reply back with the word, STOP.

You can also report the sender by forwarding the texts to 7726, or SPAM.

Filing a complaint with the FCC is an option as well.

Also, depending on your mobile phone type, you may have a setting that filters messages from unknown numbers.

For example, on an iphone, open settings, tap the messages icon and scroll to "filter unknown senders." Then, slide the button to the "on" position.

For phone calls, Engstrom says block the number, don't answer, or if you do and there's a real person on the line, tell them to stop.

Finally, she warns be wary of scams.

Don't click on links and only give money on an official site.

"You should not be responding to anyone that you don't know or that you're not expecting a phone call or message from."

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