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Robo-calls are inexpensive method to reach voters

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

(Rochester Democrat and Chronicle)Click here for the original article.

They don't even care enough to send a live voice.

In case the barrage of mail and the television commercials isn't enough, the automated calls with political messages are lighting up home phones.

Yes, the right to vote comes with strings. And exercising that right comes with more strings.

Political campaigns harvest the names, addresses and telephone numbers of voters — especially consistent voters — as printed on voter registration cards. They use the information to reach voters through direct mail and the dreaded automated phone calls, known as robo-calls.

But unlike the calls, mail doesn't interrupt you during dinner.

Experts say there isn't much you can do to protect yourself from robo-calls, other than leaving the phone off the hook until the polls close on Nov. 8.

And for a campaign, the risk of annoying voters isn't even worth it because they've not been proved to be an effective way to reach voters, experts said.

So why do campaigns place the calls?

"They do them because they're incredibly cheap," said Shaun Dakin, founder of the National Political Do Not Contact Registry, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that lobbies for a way for voters to opt-out of automated calls.

"It's something a campaign manager can say they are doing."

Robo-calls were especially prevalent during the May special election in the 26th Congressional District, when the nation's eyes — and national political resources — were fixed on the western New York race featuring Kathy Hochul, Jane Corwin and Jack Davis.

Campaigns even boasted about the high-profile stars in their political party who were convinced to record robo-calls in the furious hours before the polls opened.

"If you robo-call us, we will contemplate not voting for you," wrote Sandra and John Cassin of Ogden in a letter to the editor in May. "The more you robo-call, the more likely we will not vote for you."

Campaign finance laws are one reason why there are so many calls. Candidate campaigns record a call. Then other groups that spend money on behalf of a candidate separately record calls. These groups could be national Republican and Democratic committees, or ideological and special-interest groups.

Because the laws prohibit outside groups from coordinating their activities with candidates, they can all deploy robo-calls without each others' knowledge.

What can follow are five to 10 calls a day placed to each voter's landline, or cellphone, depending on which number the voter provided to the Board of Elections.

The National Do Not Call Registry does not apply to political calls and opinion surveys.

"What you're talking about here is politicians regulating their own behavior, and they are loathe to regulate their own behavior," Dakin said.

Dakin is working on a separate commercial business that would allow voters to return the favor and robo-call candidates.

Robo-calls are often used to get voters to the polls in the days leading up to Election Day, but Monroe County Republican Chairman Bill Reilich said these efforts are more effective if an actual person calls voters.

"There's limited effectiveness," Reilich said of automated calls.

Local Democrats use the calls to alert voters that a candidate will be going door-to-door in the area, as a way to build name recognition.

But they recognize that the calls tend to annoy voters more than anything.

"It's kind of like a two-edged sword," said Monroe County Democratic Committee Chairman Joseph Morelle. "I think it does annoy people and I don't want to do that."

It could be worse. You could live in Massachusetts, where phone service went down the night before the November 2010 election because a deluge of robo-calls overloaded the system.

Or in Iowa, where a survey from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that in November 2007, 81 percent of presidential caucus voters were robo-called.

JTERRERI@DemocratandChronicle.com