SAN DIEGO — They come while you’re in the middle of Zoom meetings, working on homework with the kids, and when you’re eating dinner. We’re talking about unsolicited text messages from candidates and supporters and opponents of various propositions.
With the election now less than a month away, campaigns are pulling out all the stops to reach voters. Several News 8 employees said they have received the texts that often refer to you by name. We tried to call back multiple texts, but the numbers were either disconnected or led to recordings that say no one monitors that number and you are not given an option to leave a message.
That’s right - they can bother you, but you can’t reach them. So, it made us wonder: Is it legal for political campaigns to text you without permission?
According to the FCC, they can text you, but only if they do not use auto-dialing technology. Simply put, as long as a human sends the text, it's perfectly legal. Not surprisingly, there's technology out there that can help a human quickly send thousands of texts.
So, how do they get your number? It could be as simple as from the Secretary of State when you registered to vote. There's a line on the application for your phone number, but that's just one of many ways campaigns get your information.
“They got your number the same way they get consumer information about you,” said News 8 Political Analyst Laura Fink. “You can better believe that these folks have purchased information that includes your cell phone, they might know what you had ate for dinner last night, and where you bought that crocodile necklace.”
Fink said texting voters has been around for a while, but she expects this election to top them all.
“This year with the pandemic, we're going to break records in terms of volume," said Fink.
Campaigns use texting because it’s effective. You can target likely voters and the open rate is better than 90%. Now, compare that to the email open rate - which is only around 20%. So, how do you stop the texts? You can reply with the word “stop” to unsubscribe, but that doesn't mean they won't sell your name to another campaign, thus leading to more texts.
