Early voting can slow down, but not stop, political spam

Since election season started, has your phone been buzzing non-stop with unsolicited political text messages?

Early voting may appease most of them, but bad actors may continue to blow up your cell until after Election Day.

University of South Florida Political Science Professor Emerita Susan MacManus told WFSU that she has held meetings with Democratic and Republican voters. She said that everyone is tired of political texts.

“Everybody hates them and doesn’t look at them because the parties have overused it and it’s really offensive and annoying to people that that’s all they get and most of the time they ask for money,” she said.

Mass political texting has exploded in popularity nationwide since then a 2021 US Supreme Court decision loosening requirements for opt-in to mass texting lists. This allows data aggregators to collect lists of phone numbers and sell them to interested political groups or PACS.

Patrick O’Keefe, assistant professor of political communication at the University of Florida, said one way you can slow down these messages is to go to the polls, as well-funded political parties and political operations go after those who have already voted.

“Once someone has voted, there’s no point in contacting them. So for party operations that are able to incorporate that into their data centers, it means they can save money by not sending you messages, because it doesn’t even help them,” he said.

But it won’t stop them all together. Democratic political consultant Kevin Cate said he’s already voted, and that hasn’t stopped the flood of texts he’s getting.

“A normal world? Yes, campaigns would stop with direct mail, direct text messages, GOTV. However, there are many, many sloppy campaigns for every well-organized campaign. And I can speak from personal experience, I’m still inundated with texts and mailers from 99% of the campaigns that target me,” he said.

Anecdotally, the number of political text messages the author of this story wrote slowed down after he voted on the first day of early voting, but the texts didn't stop. Here's one of the messages she received the day this story was published, a request to vote early from pro-abortion ballot initiative supporters. — Anecdotally, the number of political text messages the author of this story wrote slowed down after he voted on the first day of early voting, but the texts didn’t stop. Here’s one of the messages she received the day this story was published, a request to vote early from pro-abortion ballot initiative supporters.

Another part of the problem is that some people form political committees without the intention of actually supporting a cause or candidate. Instead, they send text messages claiming to support a Republican or Democratic issue, then send most of the money they receive directly to their consultants. Cate says those groups are some of the worst offenders.

“You’ve had a proliferation of shady Fly-By-Night super PACs and other entities that are trying to get money out of people and therefore have no incentive to remove you from a texting list because you’ve already voted, or if you put it another way, all they want is your attention and your money, and the quickest, shadiest, dumbest way to do that is to message you non-stop until you respond,” he said .

UF’s O’Keefe says the existence of those PACs and other abuses will likely hurt the effectiveness of texting in the long run unless changes occur.

“The industry is either going to have to self-regulate or the government is going to have to come in and regulate, because it’s not good for campaigns or the public,” he said.

For now, stop messaging any number you’ve received a spam message from. It will prevent you from receiving more messages from that number, but other groups may still spam other numbers, so you may need to send stop multiple times.