Robo-calls

The Oregonian today calls attention to a proposed ban on automatic dialed, recorded telephone messages, known as robo-calls. During my campaign for City Council, several campaign consultants urged me to use them. “They’re so cheap, and if you set them to call during the work day when most people are out, they won’t be able to tell it wasn’t a live call. And they work!”, they said. Google ads cite costs as low as 1.5 cents a call, which is much cheaper than any other form of paid campaign advertising. I refused to use them. I find the calls intrusive and annoying when I receive them, and I’m less likely to vote for whatever the caller is pushing because they don’t give the courtesy of allowing questions. And if even one person missed a phone call from their child because a robo-call from my campaign was tying up the line, for me that was one too many.

Tom Potter made a recording for robo-calls that Dan Saltzman used in the May primary last year. I expect the pro-Charter change campaign to do the same in this election. I don’t know if opponents will be using them – I hope not. I’m planning to volunteer with a union phone bank, to ensure more people have a real person calling in case the voter has questions.

The Legislature is discussing banning robo-calls. That’s too far over the line of freedom of speech, especially political speech, for me. But there are big problems with the use of automatic, recorded messages.

Some campaigns use them as offensive weapons, making fake recordings purporting to be from the opposing candidate then blasting the message to the same household multiple times. Computer programers and campaign workers make mistakes. I heard reports that a union robo-call once started calling the union’s members in the middle of the night. Since my husband is a doctor, I don’t panic at 4 a.m. calls the way most people would, assuming a loved one was in deep trouble, but I still don’t want to be disturbed by an automatic message at that time.

Last May, Jack Bog’s blog called for legislation requirng robo-calls to use a real caller ID with a usable return phone number and the name of the candidate/sponsoring entity. But not everyone pays for caller ID, and I’d go further. Printed and TV/radio political ads are required to state who paid for the message, so evidently that is a requirement for political speech that has been found Constitutional. During my campaign, in every radio ad I was required to state a specific phrase that took 8 of the 30 seconds I was purchasing: “I’m Amanda Fritz. As a Certified Public Campaign Finance candidate, I take personal responsibility for the content of this ad.”

I think the Legislature should discuss requiring robo-calls to begin by saying, “This is a recorded call from [phone number], paid for by [campaign/commercial entity/whoever]”. And I’d like to see consideration of fines for automatic calls placed between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m., and to any unlisted/do-not-solicit phone numbers. That way, more campaigns might begin to question the true cost of those cheap calls.